元话语
Metadiscourse
布鲁姆斯伯里语言学经典丛书
Bloomsbury Classics in Linguistics
布鲁姆斯伯里语言学经典丛书重温了布鲁姆斯伯里出版社丰富的语言学著作中的精华和经典之作。这些书籍经过重新排版,以价格实惠的平装本形式再版发行,是语言学学者或学生为藏书增添经典文本的必备之选。
Bloomsbury Classics in Linguistics revisits the highlights and cornerstones of Bloomsbury's extensive linguistics back list. These books are newly typeset and reissued in affordable paperback editions and are a must-have for the linguistics scholar or student interested in adding canonical texts to their library
《学术写作与剽窃》,作者:黛安·佩科拉里
Academic Writing and Plagiarism, by Diane Pecorari
《在ESL课堂中搭建话语桥梁》,作者:保琳·吉本斯
Bridging Discourses in the ESL Classroom, by Pauline Gibbons
《媒体中的语言》,由萨莉·约翰逊和阿斯特丽德·恩斯林编辑
Language in the Media, edited by Sally Johnson and Astrid Ensslin
媒体话语,作者:肯·海兰德
Mediadiscourse, by Ken Hyland
新闻话语,莫妮卡·贝德纳雷克和海伦·卡普尔
News Discourse, Monika Bednarek and Helen Caple
话语中的对立:对立意义的建构,莱斯利·杰弗里斯
Opposition in Discourse: The Construction of Oppostional Meaning, Lesley Jeffries
第二语言身份认同,作者:大卫·布洛克
Second Language Identities, by David Block
教师认知与语言教育,西蒙·博格
Teacher Cognition and Language Education, Simon Borg
《书面话语的世界:基于体裁的视角》,作者:维杰·巴蒂亚
Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-Based View, by Vijay Bhatia
元话语
Metadiscourse
探索写作中的互动
Exploring interaction in writing
肯·海兰德
KEN HYLAND
内容
Contents
Acknowledgements to first edition
Acknowledgements to second edition
SECTION ONE What is metadiscourse?
2 Definitions, issues and classifications
SECTION TWO Metadiscourse in practice
SECTION THREE Issues and implications
8 Metadiscourse in the classroom
Acknowledgements to first edition
本书源于我与元话语之间长达十余年而又充满波折的探索,这段探索既令我着迷,又令我倍感挫败。因此,我必须感谢那些以怀疑、质疑和批判性见解鼓励我坚持不懈地探索这一理念的人们。其中,我最想感谢的是约翰·斯沃斯(John Swales)、苏·胡德(Sue Hood)和克里斯·坎德林(Chris Candlin),他们是我的同事和朋友,他们对话语理解的知识和热情一直激励着我。最近,我在香港的研究助理波莉·谢(Polly Tse)也给了我很大的鼓励,她参与的一个元话语项目激发了我对元话语的全新兴趣,并让我对它的运作方式有了新的理解。我还要感谢Continuum出版社的珍妮·洛弗尔(Jenny Lovel),她是一位优秀的合作伙伴,并支持本书及其所属系列。最后,一如既往,我要感谢菲奥娜·海兰(Fiona Hyland),她通读了整部手稿,避免了我犯下更多令人尴尬的错误;她对写作提出了许多富有启发性的见解;她始终如一的支持和鼓励也让我受益匪浅。
This book results from a long and tempestuous relationship with metadiscourse that has intrigued and frustrated me in equal parts for over ten years. I must therefore thank those whose scepticism, suspicions and critical insights have encouraged me to stubbornly refuse to abandon the idea. Among these I most want to acknowledge John Swales, Sue Hood and Chris Candlin, colleagues and friends whose knowledge and enthusiasm for understanding discourse is a constant inspiration. More recently, I have been encouraged by Polly Tse, my research assistant in Hong Kong, whose collaboration on a metadiscourse project helped me to a new appetite for metadiscourse and a fresh understanding into how it works. I am also grateful to Jenny Lovel at Continuum Press for being a good person to work with and for supporting this book and the series it is in. Finally, as always, my thanks go to Fiona Hyland, for saving me from even more embarrassing errors by reading the entire manuscript, for her stimulating thoughts on writing, and for her constant support and encouragement.
Acknowledgements to second edition
尽管元话语理论饱受争议,但它对许多人来说仍然是一个引人入胜且富有成效的概念。这一点在我十三年前撰写本书时依然如此。虽然我本人并未直接参与本书的创作,但我仍要感谢那些始终相信这一理念并让我保持对其兴趣的学者和教师们。他们包括众多使用、拓展和引用本书的作者,以及来自中国、伊朗、土耳其和西班牙等地的学生和学者,他们给我发来感谢信或提出疑问。同时,我也必须感谢众多对这一理念持批评态度的人,正是他们的批评让我们保持警醒,确保我们不会陷入盲目接受或机械重复的窠臼。就此次再版而言,我尤其要感谢布鲁姆斯伯里出版社的Helen Saunders,感谢她认为本书值得在名为“语言学经典”的系列丛书中再版,并感谢她对我的这一想法的推动。除此之外,我还要特别感谢我在原致谢部分提到的朋友们。令人惋惜的是,我的研究助理兼本书项目同事波莉·谢(Polly Tse)于2016年去世,年仅36岁。波莉的离世是应用语言学界的巨大损失,我们都非常怀念她。本书再版谨以此纪念她。
Despite the slings and arrows flung at it, metadiscourse remains an intriguing and productive concept for a lot of people. This remains as true now as when I wrote this book over thirteen years ago and, while not contributing directly to what is in these pages, I want to thank those scholars and teachers who have continued to believe in the idea and sustain my interest in it. These include the many writers who use, extend and cite the book, and the students and academics, many of whom are from China, Iran, Turkey and Spain, who write me messages of thanks or questions of clarification. It is also necessary to acknowledge the many critics of the idea as they keep us on our toes and ensure we don’t lapse into blind acceptance or rote and repetition. More immediately as far as this reissue is concerned, I want to thank Helen Saunders at Bloomsbury for believing this book to be worthy of a reissue in the grandly titled ‘Classics in Linguistics’ series, and for pushing me along with the idea. In addition to all these, I want to underline the debt I have to the friends I mentioned in the original acknowledgements. Sadly, my research assistant and colleague on the project which led to this book, Polly Tse, passed away in 2016, aged just thirty-six. Polly’s cruel departure is a tremendous loss to applied linguistics and she is sadly missed. This reissue is dedicated to her memory.
学生们经常被告知,成功的英语写作要“便于读者理解”。它必须逻辑严密,结构清晰,引导读者阅读,并考虑到读者可能的反应和理解上的困难。但它也需要对作者自身有所裨益,因为我们交流是有目的的。我们运用语言来说服、告知、娱乐,或者仅仅是吸引读者,这意味着我们要传达一种对我们所表达的内容以及对读者的态度。这些功能统称为元话语:它指的是那些指向文本演变、指向作者以及文本的假想读者的语言表达方式。
Students are often told that successful writing in English is ‘reader-friendly’. It must fit together logically, be signposted to guide readers, and take their likely responses and processing difficulties into account. But it also needs to work for the writer too, as we communicate for a reason. We use language to persuade, inform, entertain or perhaps just engage an audience, and this means conveying an attitude to what we say and to our readers. These functions are collectively known as metadiscourse: the linguistic expressions which refer to the evolving text and to the writer and imagined readers of that text.
元话语的概念基于一种将写作视为社会互动的观点。它体现了作者对文本展开过程的认知,即文本本身即是一种话语:我们如何将自身和读者置于文本之中,从而在特定的社会语境中创作出令人信服、连贯的文章。通过以对话者易于接受的方式阐述观点,展现恰当的作者个性,并以恰当的方式与他们互动,我们便能创造出使文本有效的社会互动。近年来,随着研究者将关注点从文本所包含的思想扩展到文本的人际功能,这些互动功能日益受到重视。人们现在认识到,书面文本不仅关乎世界上的人物、地点和活动,而且还承认、构建和协商社会关系。作者有效运用元话语的能力,即通过提供可信的自我呈现和思想表达来掌控文本中的个性水平,正逐渐被视为成功写作的关键特征。
The concept of metadiscourse is based on a view of writing as social engagement. It represents the writer’s awareness of the unfolding text as discourse: how we situate ourselves and our readers in a text to create convincing, coherent prose in particular social contexts. By setting out ideas in ways our interlocutors are likely to accept, conveying an appropriate writer personality, and engaging with them in appropriate ways, we create the social interactions which make our texts effective. These interactional functions have attracted increasing attention in recent years as researchers have widened their focus beyond the ideas texts contain to the ways they function interpersonally. It is now recognized that written texts not only concern people, places and activities in the world, but also acknowledge, construct and negotiate social relations. The ability of writers to use metadiscourse effectively, to control the level of personality in their texts by offering a credible representation of themselves and their ideas, is coming to be seen as a defining feature of successful writing.
对许多人来说,元话语是一个直观上很有吸引力的概念,因为它似乎提供了一种有原则的方法来将各种信息归于同一主题之下。作者运用多种语言手段来组织文本、吸引读者并表达他们对素材和受众的态度,这便是元话语。然而,这一潜力从未得到充分发挥。元话语理论尚不完善,经验上也模糊不清。由于未能精确界定这一概念,它未能发挥其解释力,也未能使分析者自信地将其应用于实际文本。这种理论严谨性和经验清晰度的缺失,使得元话语分析成为一种难以捉摸且令人沮丧的体验。然而,这也构成了本书的理论基础,并为梳理元话语研究、或许还能推动这一概念向前发展提供了一个起点。
For many people, metadiscourse is an intuitively attractive concept as it seems to offer a principled way of collecting under one heading the diverse range of linguistic devices writers use to explicitly organize their texts, engage readers and signal their attitudes to their material and their audience. This promise, however, has never been fully realized. Metadiscourse remains under-theorized and empirically vague. The failure to pin the concept down precisely has meant that it has not achieved its explanatory potential or allowed analysts to confidently operationalize it in real texts. This lack of theoretical rigour and empirical explicitness has made analysis an elusive and frustrating experience. It also, however, forms the rationale for this book and provides a starting point for an attempt to take stock of metadiscourse research and perhaps move the concept on a little.
本书旨在回顾、探讨和批判现有的元话语概念,探究其优势与不足,并探究它们对一般交流以及学术写作的启示。同时,我也力求综合并拓展这些概念,构建一个更稳健、更清晰、更实用的元话语模型。我认为,元话语概念为我们提供了一种连贯且语境敏感的分析话语互动的方式,并能让我们深入了解文本使用者及其社群的价值观、信念和假设。我主要关注写作,尤其是学术和专业文本,因为这些文本往往被视为“信息性”文本或经验记录,而非社会互动。互动特征在诸如日常对话等体裁中或许更为明显,但所有语言使用,无论书面还是口头,都参与到参与者之间意义共享的过程中。通过聚焦那些不太明显的互动特征,我希望阐明实现意义共享的一种方式。
My goal in this book is to review, discuss and critique existing conceptions of metadiscourse, to discover their strengths and weaknesses, and to explore what they have to tell us about communication in general and academic writing in particular. I also set out to both synthesize and build on these conceptions to offer a more robust, explicit and useful model of metadiscourse. I will argue that the concept provides us with a coherent and context-sensitive way of analysing interactions in discourse and affording insights about the values, beliefs and assumptions of text users and their communities. I focus primarily on writing and on academic and professional texts as these tend to be regarded as either ‘informational’ or as records of experience rather than social interactions. Interactive features are perhaps more obvious in genres such as casual conversation, but all language use, whether written or spoken, is involved in the process of sharing meaning between participants, and by concentrating on the less obvious I hope to make clear one way in which this is achieved.
本书分为三个部分。第一部分介绍元话语的基本区别、假设和分类,阐述其目标和理论基础,对该术语的一些概念提出质疑,并提出一种改进的分类方案。第二部分讨论该术语的主要应用,并阐述元话语对我们理解修辞、文体、文化和社群的贡献。本部分阐述了元话语的研究价值,并举例说明了该概念的关键功能、形式和用途。最后一部分探讨了元话语对教师和学生的重要性,概述了其在写作课堂中的一些实际优势和应用,并展望了该领域未来的研究方向。
The book is organized as three sections. The first presents the basic distinctions, assumptions and classifications of metadiscourse, introducing its goals and rationale, problematizing some of the conceptions of the term and proposing a modified categorization scheme. The second part discusses the main applications of the term and addresses what metadiscourse has contributed to our understanding of rhetoric, genre, culture and community. This section thus describes its research value and illustrates the key functions, forms and uses of the concept. The final section explores the importance of metadiscourse for teachers and students, outlining some of its practical advantages and applications in the writing class, then pointing forward to further research in the area.
Preface to second edition: Metadiscourse thirteen years on
坐在这里构思为这本书的再版撰写序言,感觉很奇妙。当初写这本书的时候,我以为它会在几年后悄然消亡。然而,自2005年首次出版以来,它从未绝版,中国外语教学与研究出版社还推出了低价版,并在谷歌学术上获得了约1600次引用,这些都令我感到惊讶。
It is a strange experience sitting here thinking up a preface to mark the reissue of a book which, when I wrote it, I expected to die quietly after a couple of years. The fact that it has never been out of print since it was first published in 2005, has appeared as a low-cost edition by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in China, and has collected some 1,600 citations on Google Scholar remains a source of astonishment to me.
我写这本书,部分原因是想配合我为Continuum出版社(现为Bloomsbury出版社)编辑的关于话语的新系列丛书的出版,但主要原因是我想看看在这个主题上是否还有什么新的见解。元话语这个术语最早是由结构语言学家泽利格·哈里斯(Zelig Harris,1959)在近五十年前提出的,但直到20世纪80年代中期,随着范德·科普尔(Vande Kopple,1985)、克里斯莫尔(Crismore,1989)和威廉姆斯(Williams,1981)等人的研究,才开始流行起来。然而到了2005年,这个术语的热度已经下降,谷歌学术上每年只有大约十到十五篇相关的论文,而且人们对此的兴趣也相当低。对于我们这些对第二语言写作和学术话语感兴趣的人来说,它似乎没有什么价值。
When I wrote the book, it was partly to help launch a new series I was editing for Continuum (now Bloomsbury) on discourse, but mainly because I wanted to see if anything new could be said about the topic. The term metadiscourse had first been mentioned by the structural linguist Zelig Harris (1959) nearly fifty years earlier, but had only picked up speed in the mid-1980s with the work of Vande Kopple (1985), Crismore (1989) and Williams (1981). But by 2005 the term was running out of steam with around ten or fifteen papers a year recorded on Google Scholar and fairly low levels of interest. It seemed to have little to offer those of us interested in second-language writing and academic discourse.
我已从香港教育资助局获得资助,研究博士论文中使用的修辞特征,因此我认为运用元话语分析或许会很有意思。元话语是本研究的框架。元话语指的是我们如何出于对读者或听众的考虑而使用语言,这种考虑基于我们如何才能最好地帮助他们理解和消化我们所说的话。它是一种接收者设计过滤器,通过对信息进行持续的评述,帮助我们阐明信息希望被理解的方式,并以此方式吸引读者对文本的关注,从而揭示作者对读者的认知。因此,它能告诉我们一些关于话语互动的信息:作者如何理解读者,读者需要阐述、澄清和指导的类型和程度,以及作者如何预测读者对文本的潜在反应。由于“读懂读者”的能力对学生来说历来都很困难,因此元话语似乎是一种很有前景的方法,可以帮助我们了解学生对其学科的理解,以及不同学科在修辞期望方面的差异。因此,它不仅有可能深入了解学生的写作和学术界的偏好,而且从元话语入手,提供了一个机会来参与,或许还能发展克里斯莫尔等人的早期工作。
Having secured some funding from the Hong Kong Grants Authority to look at the rhetorical features used in doctoral dissertations, I thought it might be interesting to use metadiscourse as the framework for the study. Metadiscourse refers to how we use language out of consideration for our readers or hearers, based on our estimation of how best we can help them process and comprehend what we are saying. It is a recipient design filter which helps to spell out how we intend a message to be understood by offering a running commentary on it and, drawing attention to the text in this way, reveals a writer’s awareness of the reader. It therefore tells us something about interaction in discourse: how a writer understands readers, the type and extent of his or her need for elaboration, clarification and guidance, and how the writer anticipates the reader’s potential reaction to the text. As the ability to ‘read an audience’ is notoriously difficult for students, metadiscourse seemed a promising way of getting at students’ understandings of their disciplines and how the disciplines differ in terms of their rhetorical expectations. It therefore had the potential not only to offer insights into student writing and the preferences of academic communities, but also, starting with metadiscourse provided an opportunity to engage with, and perhaps develop, the earlier work of Crismore and others.
这比预想的要难得多。元话语当时是一个模糊的概念,现在依然如此。我希望它能捕捉到交流的互动性,而元话语区分命题型和读者导向型材料这一事实,似乎是一个有效的方法。它告诉我们,文本的意义是这两个要素共同作用的结果:一方面是关于经验世界的讨论,另一方面是如何使这些讨论连贯、易懂且具有说服力,从而吸引特定的受众。例如,正是这种整合使得会议报告可以被改写成科普文章、教科书章节、博客文章、研究论文或项目申请书,以服务于不同的目的和受众,但内容却明显相似。因此,元话语表明,互动将取决于语境,并且会因文体、社群和语言的不同而有所差异。然而,关于元话语的边界应该如何界定,以及它包含哪些修辞范畴,目前仍存在争议,也缺乏共识。
This proved harder than expected. Metadiscourse was then, and remains now, a fuzzy term. I wanted it to capture the interactive character of communication and the fact that metadiscourse distinguishes between propositional and reader-oriented material seemed a productive way of doing this. It tells us that the meaning of a text is the result of these two elements working together: an integration of talk about the experiential world and how this is made coherent, intelligible and persuasive to a particular audience. It is this integration, for example, that allows conference presentations to be rewritten as popularizations, textbook chapters, blogs, research articles or grant proposals for different purposes and audiences but with recognizably similar content. Metadiscourse, then, suggests that interaction is going to be context dependent and to differ across genres, communities and languages, but there are disputes about where we should draw the boundary of metadiscourse and a lack of consensus on or what rhetorical categories it includes.
然而,我和我的研究助理波莉·谢(Polly Tse)受到了语言学巨匠的鼓舞,例如雅各布森(Jacobson,1980)谈到了语言的“元语言功能”,这种功能关注的是文本本身;还有哈利迪(Halliday,1985:271),他使用了“元现象”一词。指的是“语言的范畴,而非现实世界的范畴”。这些观点支持这样一种观点:语言不仅指涉世界,进行各种信息的交流,也指涉文本本身:帮助读者组织、解释和评价所说的话。我们把所有能想到的关于元话语的反对意见和问题都写在便利贴上,贴在波莉电脑上方的墙上,每想到一个合理的解决方法就撕下一张。这花了不少时间。
My research assistant, Polly Tse, and I were, however, encouraged by reading giants of linguistics such as Jacobson (1980) who spoke of a ‘metalinguistic function’ of language, which focuses on the text itself, and Halliday (1985: 271), who uses the term ‘metaphenomena’ to refer to ‘categories of the language, not of the real world’. These ideas support the idea that language not only refers to the world, with the exchange of various kinds of information, but also to the text itself: with helping readers to organize, interpret and evaluate what is being said. We wrote every objection and problem with metadiscourse we could think of on post-it notes and stuck them on the wall above Polly’s computer, tearing them off as we came up with a plausible way of addressing each one. This took some time.
我们首先打破了文本命题性层面和元话语层面之间僵化的界限。任何一段话语都可能同时具备这两种功能,最明显的例子就是“寒暄式交流”,其中文本的“内容”本身就是作者与读者之间的关系。同样,一些常被认为是元话语的词语,例如“因此”、“相反”和“结果”,也可以通过连接论证或作品中的各个步骤,以命题的方式将文本之外的事件联系起来,从而发挥元话语的作用。接下来,我们探讨了第二个问题:元话语单元的识别。元话语可以由长度不一的单元构成,从单个词语到完整的从句或句子,有些较长的单元甚至包含较短的单元。例如,“我们的结论”既可以被视为一个框架标记,预示着即将出现的文本片段,也可以被视为两个单元,其中“我们的”被编码为自我提及。但是,识别较小的单元并不会遗漏较长的单元,也不会歪曲文本中元话语的范围,只要分析人员在判断上保持透明,在编码上保持一致。
The first thing we did was relax a rigid division between propositional and metadiscoursal aspects of text. Any stretch of discourse may realize both functions, most obviously in ‘phatic communion’ where the ‘content’ of a text is the writer-reader relationship itself. Equally, items often identified as metadiscoursal, such as therefore, in contrast and as a result of, can function as metadiscourse by connecting steps in an argument or work ‘propositionally’ to connect events in the world outside the text. We then addressed a second issue, the identification of metadiscoursal units. Metadiscourse can be realized by units of varied length, from individual words to whole clauses or sentences with some longer units encompassing smaller ones, so that ‘Our conclusion’ could be categorized as an example of a frame marker signalling an upcoming text segment, or as two units with ‘our’ coded as self-mention. But identifying the smaller units does not miss the longer ones, and nor does it misrepresent the extent of metadiscourse in a text as long as analysts are transparent in their judgements and consistent in their coding.
也有一些批评针对使用语料库识别元话语的做法,但这些批评大多基于一个错误的假设,即语料库研究优先考虑表面特征,并将形式实现而非话语功能作为分析对象。我注意到一些研究存在这种情况——研究人员仅凭我列出的标记词(例如本书附录中的标记词)就止步不前,而没有检查这些标记词在文本中的作用。这是一种偷懒的做法,因为该列表仅仅是一个起点,是对特定语体中通常作为元话语功能的高频词项的初步筛选。但这并不意味着在后续的语料库检索中不能添加其他词项,或者不应该在文本中检查列表中出现的所有词项的上下文,以确保它们确实发挥了元话语功能。换句话说,阅读经文汇编比记录频率更重要,但遗憾的是,这一点有时会被人遗忘。
There are also criticisms levelled at the use of corpora to identify metadiscourse, but these are largely based on an erroneous assumption that corpus studies give priority to surface features and make the formal realization rather than the discourse function the object of analysis. I have noticed this in some studies – where researchers work from my list of markers (such as those in the appendix of this book) and stop there without checking to see what they are doing in the text. This is a lazy approach as the list is just a starting point, a first fix on high frequency items that commonly function as metadiscourse in a particular register. It doesn’t mean that additional items can’t be added on subsequent sweeps through the corpus or that all items from the list that occur in a text shouldn’t be examined in context to ensure they are performing metadiscourse functions. In other words, reading concordance lines is more important than recording frequency counts and, unfortunately, this is sometimes forgotten.
我们还必须考虑一个相关问题,即元话语功能可以通过不同的方式实现,单个词项可能同时发挥多种功能。因此,相同的词形可以传达不同类别的元话语(例如,“ quite ”既可以作为缓和语气(quite good)也可以作为增强语气(quite extraordinary )),或者“possible ”一词既可以作为元话语的缓和语气(it's possible that he was drunk),也可以指代现实世界中的可能性(it's possible to catch a bus here)。类似地,实现特定功能的形式,例如那些标记陈述之间让步关系的形式,也可以用多种方式表达(even if、coursely、considently、although等)。这种类别重叠在话语分析中是众所周知的,也是语言多功能性的结果。虽然这并非不可克服的问题,但这意味着研究人员需要结合语境来检验潜在的元话语词项——我们不能仅仅停留在词频统计上。为了深入理解语言使用并说服他人认识到元话语的价值,我们必须避免肤浅的形式功能对应,并手动排除无关的实例。我们不仅关注形式本身,更关注服务于修辞目标的形式。
We also had to think about the related issue that metadiscourse functions can be performed in different ways and that individual items may perform more than one function simultaneously. So the same forms can convey different categories of metadiscourse (e.g. quite can be a hedge (quite good) or a booster (quite extraordinary)) or the word possible may function as metadiscourse by hedging a statement (it’s possible that he was drunk) or as referring to a likelihood in the real world (it’s possible to catch a bus here). Similarly, forms which realize particular functions, such as tho se which label concessive connections between statements, for instance, can be expressed in numerous ways (even if, of course, admittedly, although, etc.). This kind of category overlap is well known in discourse analysis, and a consequence of the multifunctionality of language, but while not an insurmountable problem, it means that researchers need to check potential metadiscourse items in context – we can’t just stop at frequency counts. To provide insights into language use and persuade others of the value of metadiscourse, we must avoid superficial form-function correspondences and manually exclude irrelevant instances. We are not interested only in forms but forms acting in the service of rhetorical objectives.
然而,我们无法克服一个显而易见的批评,即并非所有元话语都能被分析者理解。作为研究对象群体或社群之外的局外人,我们永远无法完全理解特定术语对内部人员的意义。尽管如此,分析的一致性和对相关条目的仔细识别,使得研究者能够将元话语作为分析话语的有力工具。本书中,我试图表明,如果我们不将元话语狭义地局限于文本组织特征,而是将其应用于更广泛的领域,那么这种可能性就更大。这种方法有时被称为元文本或文本反思性(Mauranen,1993)。我曾在其他文章中将元话语的概念描述为沿着一条连续谱系扩展(Hyland,2017)。一端的观点将元话语限定为那些指向文本本身、表明其方向、目的和内部结构的语篇要素;而另一端的观点则将文本组织材料以及作者表达其对内容和受众理解的方式都纳入其中。
We were, however, unable to overcome the obvious criticism that not all metadiscourse is accessible to the analyst. As outsiders to the communities or groups we study we will never be able to fully get at the meanings which particular terms can carry for insiders. Despite this, consistency in analysis and careful identification of items allows researchers to use metadiscourse as a powerful tool for analysing discourse. In this book I tried to show that this is more likely if we do not narrowly restrict the term to features of text organization alone, an approach sometime called metatext or text reflexivity (Mauranen, 1993). I have elsewhere characterized conceptions of metadiscourse as spreading along a cline (Hyland, 2017). At one end is a view which limits the term to those elements of discourse which refer to the text itself, signalling its direction, purpose and internal structure, while at the other analysts include text organizing material together with the ways writers signal their understandings of the content and their audience.
这似乎是对“元话语”概念的自然延伸,该概念汇集了说话者和作者用来塑造信息、以迎合特定听众或读者的语言手段。在此,“元话语”被理解为一套连贯的人际资源,用于组织话语或作者对话语内容或读者的立场。它是一个涵盖多种特征的总称,这些特征不仅帮助读者联系和组织材料,还能帮助读者以作者偏好的方式,并结合特定话语社群的理解和价值观来解读材料。
This appears to be a natural and logical extension of the concept which collects together the linguistic devices speakers and writers use to shape their messages for particular listeners or readers. Here metadiscourse is understood as a coherent set of interpersonal resources used to organize a discourse or the writer’s stance towards either its content or the reader. It is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous array of features which assist readers not only to connect and organize material but also to interpret it in a way preferred by the writer and with regard to the understandings and values of a particular discourse community.
事实上,元话语分析如今已成为研究专业文本最常用的方法之一。仅谷歌搜索就能产生超过18万条结果,谷歌学术搜索也能找到约800篇标题包含“元话语”的文献,而Web of Science收录了超过275篇相关论文。自2004年左右本书及Ä del (2006)的另一本关于元话语的著作出版以来,该领域的研究成果显著增长。这或许只是巧合,但人们对这一主题的兴趣至今仍在持续升温,目前已有约100篇相关博士论文和13本专著,Scopus收录了138种发表过相关论文的期刊。这些论文中约30%出自美国作者之手,另有30%来自西班牙、英国、伊朗和中国的研究人员。事实上, Scopus收录了来自46个不同国家的同行评审论文。由于数据库的检索方式,这些文献主要以英文撰写,尽管谷歌学术显示,其中9%为波斯语,5%为中文,4%为西班牙语(Hyland,2017)。引用次数也表明人们对元话语保持着浓厚的兴趣,谷歌学术上的相关文献接近11000篇,位列引用次数前200名。此外,自2004年以来,这些文献的引用次数一直在增长,并在过去八年中呈爆炸式增长,达到每年500篇。
In fact, metadiscourse is now one of the most commonly employed methods for approaching specialist written texts, so that a simple Google search produces over 180,000 hits, Google Scholar returns some 800 documents with metadiscourse in the title and the Web of Science over 275 papers on the topic. This research output has increased considerably since 2004, around the time of this book and another on metadiscourse by Ä del (2006) were published. This is probably a coincidence, but interest in the topic continues to rise today, with some 100 doctoral dissertations on the topic and 13 books, and Scopus listing 138 journals which have published papers on the topic. Some 30 per cent of these papers were written by authors in the United States and another 30 per cent from researchers in Spain, England, Iran and China. Scopus, in fact, includes peer-reviewed papers from forty-six different countries. Because of the search practices of the databases, these are mainly written in English although Google Scholar shows 9 per cent written in Farsi, 5 per cent in Chinese and 4 per cent in Spanish (Hyland, 2017). Citations also show a keen and continuing interest in metadiscourse with nearly 11,000 on Google Scholar, putting it among the top 200 of cited items. These citations have, moreover, have been increasing since 2004 and have shot up in the last eight years, increasing to 500 a year.
衡量一个概念重要性的另一个指标是其贡献领域的广度。以“元话语”为目标词,利用CiteSpace (Chen,2016)对Web of Science上的论文进行分析表明,本书对元话语研究产生了显著影响,尤其是在英语学术文体方面。文章和摘要是研究的重点领域,尤其关注人际模型,其中立场、评价、参与和说服等关键词都十分突出。谷歌学术收录的大量文献也显示出类似的倾向,即关注英语学术写作的互动特征,以及元话语在英语作为第二语言(ESL)学习者学习和跨语言比较中所扮演的角色。在这些研究中,作者通常将一种语言(几乎总是英语)的文本与另一种语言(通常是波斯语、汉语或西班牙语)的文本进行比较。跨学科、跨专业和跨体裁的元话语研究在文献中极为常见,并且研究范围正在扩展到口语、数字和视觉模式。
Another indication of the significance of a concept is the range of areas to which it contributes. Using metadiscourse as a target word, a CiteSpace (Chen, 2016) analysis of papers on the Web of Science suggests the considerable impact of this book on metadiscourse research, with academic genres in English, particularly research articles and abstracts, being the focal areas of interest and particular attention given to the interpersonal model, with stance, evaluation, engagement and persuasion all prominent in the keywords. The much larger corpus of work indexed by Google Scholar shows a similar leaning towards the interactional features of academic writing in English but also in the role that metadiscourse plays in the work of ESL students and in comparisons across languages. Here authors most often seek to compare texts in one language (almost always English) with those in another language (usually Persian, Chinese or Spanish). Cross-disciplinary, cross-expertise and cross-genre studies of metadiscourse are extremely common in the literature and research is extending to spoken, digital and visual modes.
当然,元话语概念的巨大发展和显著成果不能完全归功于布鲁姆斯伯里丛书中的这本著作,但我很高兴自己能够为理解元话语做出一点贡献,并推动其朝着某个特定方向发展。部分得益于本书,元话语一词如今已指代那些采用广义的互动式定义,并主要运用语料库探究的话语分析方法,偶尔辅以文本使用者观点的研究。我坚信这是一个富有成效的方向,因为将元话语局限于那些能够表明文本组织方式的特征,会忽略作者为读者构建信息的重要方式,从而有可能削弱元话语作为强大分析工具的本质。但这并不意味着元话语是一个一成不变、无法发展和完善的概念。事实上,近年来,研究已经扩展到学术界一些不太受关注的领域,例如论文、讲座和 TED 演讲,以及商业、法律和娱乐类型;元话语的新特征,例如“立场名词”、超链接和法庭上的“激动话语”,也得到了探索;此外,还采用了实验程序和众包标注等替代方法。
While the huge growth and substantial productivity of the concept cannot, of course, be attributed to this single volume in the Bloomsbury series, I am pleased that I have been able to make a small contribution to how metadiscourse is understood and help nudge it in a particular direction. Partly as a result of this book, the term metadiscourse has come to mean work conducted using a broad, interactional definition of the term and research which largely employs discourse-analytic procedures of corpus interrogation, occasionally supplemented with the views of text users. I strongly believe this is a fruitful direction to take as confining the term to those features which signal how the text is organized ignores important ways in which writers structure messages for their readers and so risks eliminating much of what makes metadiscourse a powerful analytic tool. This is not to say that metadiscourse is a static concept incapable of development and improvement. Recent years, in fact, have seen research branch into less well-trodden areas of academia, such as essays, lectures and Ted’s Talks, and into business, legal and entertainment genres; novel features of metadiscourse such as ‘stance nouns’, hyperlinks and the courtroom ‘excited utterance’ have been explored; and alternative methods such as experimental procedures and crowdsourcing annotation used.
我希望此次《元话语》的再版,以全新的封面和更低的价格,能够将这本书及其概念带给更广泛的读者,以及渴望了解更多关于话语互动以及如何有效地探索文本的新读者。
I hope this reissue of Metadiscourse, dressed in a new cover and at a cheaper price, will bring both the book and the concept to a wider audience and to new readers keen to understand more about interaction in discourse and how they might profitably explore texts.
元话语是当前话语分析和语言教育中广泛使用的术语,它指的是一种有趣且相对较新的方法,用于概念化文本生产者与其文本之间以及文本生产者与用户之间的互动。尽管该术语的重要性日益凸显,但人们对它的理解却不尽相同,并且常常用它来指代语言使用的不同方面。本节旨在通过对元话语的主要区别、假设和分类进行批判性概述,来阐明其含义。接下来的三章将讨论元话语的关键要素,澄清并质疑该术语的一些假设和概念,并提出一个新的分类方案。这将为理解该概念以及后续章节中的相关研究奠定基础。
Metadiscourse is a widely used term in current discourse analysis and language education, referring to an interesting, and relatively new, approach to conceptualizing interactions between text producers and their texts and between text producers and users. Despite the growing importance of the term, however, it is often understood in different ways and used to refer to different aspects of language use. In this section I set out to clarify what metadiscourse means by providing a critical overview of its main distinctions, assumptions and classifications. The following three chapters therefore discuss the key elements of metadiscourse, clarify and problematize some of the assumptions and conceptions of the term, and propose a new categorization scheme. This provides a basis for understanding the concept and studies which follow in later chapters.
本章旨在简要概述元话语的概念,并阐述其为何吸引了众多从事话语分析和英语作为第二语言(ESL)写作教学的从业者的兴趣和关注。首先,我将概述这一术语的含义、其关注点以及它能为我们揭示的关于话语和交际的哪些信息。然后,我将探讨元话语在话语研究中兴起的主要原因,以及它与互动和受众这两个关键概念之间的关系。
In this chapter I set out to give a brief picture of metadiscourse and to describe why it has attracted the interest and attention of so many practitioners working in discourse analysis and ESL (English as a Second Language) writing instruction. I begin by providing a general sense of the term, what it focuses on and the kinds of things it can tell us about discourse and communication. Then I go on to look at some of the main reasons for its emergence in discourse studies and its relationship to the key notions of interaction and audience.
1.1 元话语概述
1.1 A brief overview of metadiscourse
“元话语”一词由泽利格·哈里斯于1959年提出,旨在提供一种理解语言使用方式的方法,它代表了作者或说话者试图引导读者对文本的理解。威廉姆斯(1981)、范德·科普尔(1985)和克里斯莫尔(1989)等学者进一步发展了这一概念,并将一系列话语特征(例如缓和语、连接词和各种形式的文本评注)汇集在一起,以展示作者和说话者如何介入文本的展开过程,从而影响对话者对文本的接受。
The term metadiscourse was coined by Zellig Harris in 1959 to offer a way of understanding language in use, representing a writer’s or speaker’s attempts to guide a receiver’s perception of a text. The concept has been further developed by writers such as Williams (1981), Vande Kopple (1985) and Crismore (1989), and collects together a range of discoursal features such as hedges, connectives and various forms of text commentary to show how writers and speakers intrude into their unfolding text to influence their interlocutor’s reception of it.
本质上,元话语体现了这样一种理念:沟通不仅仅是信息、商品或服务的交换,还涉及沟通者的个性、态度和假设。语言始终是互动的结果,是人与人之间差异的口头表达,而元话语选项则是我们表达和呈现这些差异的方式。构建这些互动。因此,这种将语言视为元话语的动态观点强调,当我们说话或写作时,我们是在与他人协商,并决定我们对听众或读者产生何种影响。
Essentially metadiscourse embodies the idea that communication is more than just the exchange of information, goods or services, but also involves the personalities, attitudes and assumptions of those who are communicating. Language is always a consequence of interaction, of the differences between people which are expressed verbally, and metadiscourse options are the ways we articulate and construct these interactions. This, then, is a dynamic view of language as metadiscourse stresses the fact that, as we speak or write, we negotiate with others, making decisions about the kind of effects we are having on our listeners or readers.
例如,在这段徒步旅行指南的摘录中,很明显,作者并非仅仅通过列出路线变化来介绍建议路线的信息,而是费心从读者的角度看待徒步旅行:
In this extract from a hiking guide, for instance, it is clear that the writer is not simply presenting information about the suggested route by just listing changes of direction, but taking the trouble to see the walk from the reader’s perspective:
穿过田野,彭斯赫斯特庄园的美景尽收眼底,沿着小径直达环绕庄园的石墙。沿着石墙走200米,穿过栅栏进入圣约翰浸信会教堂的墓地。穿过墓地——如果您有时间,非常值得参观这座教堂——继续走到路边,左转,方向为110度。
There is a fine prospect of Penshurst Place as you cross the field and the walk takes you directly to the stone wall surrounding it. Go along this wall and in 200 metres cross the style into the churchyard of St John the Baptist church. Walk through the churchyard – the church is well worth visiting if you have time – and continue out to the road where you turn left, your direction 110 degrees.
(《Time Out乡村漫步指南》, 2001年:153)
(Time Out Book of Country Walks, 2001: 153)
本文中祈使句、第二人称代词和评价性评论的使用,有助于作者将自己融入文本,从而更清晰地传达信息,并将读者视为志同道合的伙伴。移除这些元话语特征,会使文章显得缺乏人情味,趣味性降低,也更难理解。元话语提供了一种系统地审视这些特征的方法,使我们能够了解作者和说话者如何在特定语境中表明立场,并与读者建立联系。
The use of imperatives, second-person pronouns and evaluative commentary in this text helps the writer to involve himself in the text both to convey information more clearly and to engage the reader as a fellow enthusiast. Removing these metadiscourse features would make the passage much less personal, less interesting and less easy to follow. By offering a way of looking at these features systematically, metadiscourse provides us with access to the ways that writers and speakers take up positions and align themselves with their readers in a particular context.
因此,元话语为理解作为社会参与的沟通提供了一个框架。它阐明了我们如何通过表达对文本内容和受众的态度,将自身投射到话语中的某些方面。通过巧妙地运用元话语,作者不仅能够将原本枯燥乏味或晦涩难懂的文本转化为连贯易懂、便于读者理解的散文,还能将其与特定语境联系起来,并传达作者的个性、可信度、对受众的敏感性以及与信息的关系(Hyland,2000)。
Metadiscourse thus offers a framework for understanding communication as social engagement. It illuminates some aspects of how we project ourselves into our discourses by signalling our attitude towards both the content and the audience of the text. With the judicious addition of metadiscourse, a writer is able not only to transform what might otherwise be a dry or difficult text into coherent, reader-friendly prose, but also to relate it to a given context and convey his or her personality, credibility, audience-sensitivity and relationship to the message (Hyland, 2000).
我们必须记住,写作和说话,作为意义建构的行为,从来都不是中立的,它们总是参与其中,因为它们体现了人们的利益、立场、观点和价值观。那些阐释意义的人必须考虑其社会影响,以及它对诠释者、读者或听众(即当时构成传播受众的人)的影响。元话语是实现这一目标的主要手段之一,它使作者/发言者及其受众参与到相互理解和互动的过程中。
We have to remember that writing and speaking, acts of meaning-making, are never neutral but always engaged in that they realize the interests, the positions, the perspectives and the values of those who enact them. Those that articulate meaning must therefore consider its social impact, the effect it has on those who interpret the meaning, the readers or hearers who at that moment constitute an audience for the communication. Metadiscourse is one of the main means by which this is accomplished, involving writers/speakers and their audiences in mutual acts of comprehension and involvement.
在话语研究中,“受众”的概念一直存在争议,但普遍认为,清晰地了解我们的写作对象或听众是谁,能够简化沟通任务,并提高最终文本成功达成目标的可能性。这是因为,了解受众能够帮助我们更好地理解读者/听众的认知基础,以及我们需要解释和论证的内容。这意味着我们能够更有效地展现自身形象,运用他们预期的互动和说服方式,并更有说服力地阐明我们的立场和态度。能够以受众期望和理解的方式与他们建立联系,意味着创作出能够从他们的角度看待事物的文本,从而使文本更易于理解、更有趣,也更有可能引发预期的反响。
The idea of audience is something of a contested notion in discourse studies, but it is generally accepted that a clear sense of who we are writing for or speaking to makes the communicative task easier and increases the chance that the resulting text will successfully meet our goals. This is because an idea of who the audience is gives us a greater understanding of what we can assume our reader/hearer knows and what we need to explain and support. It means we are able to offer a credible and effective representation of ourselves, use anticipated forms of engagement and persuasion, and establish our positions and attitudes more convincingly. An ability to relate to an audience in ways that they will expect and understand means creating texts which see things as they do, so that the text is easier to comprehend, more interesting, and more likely to create the desired response.
元话语指的是我们在文本中实现对语境和受众理解的各种方式,以及我们用来将原本可能枯燥乏味的文本转化为满足参与者需求的语篇的各种形式。因此,它已成为我们日常语言的普遍特征,也是我们在各种体裁和语境中进行交流的重要方式。克里斯莫尔(Crismore,1989)指出,元话语从古代、中世纪到现代的写作中一直存在,并详细阐述了它在诗歌、科学和传记等不同语篇中的运用。
Metadiscourse has come to refer to the various ways that these understandings of context and audience are realized in texts, the forms we use to transform what may otherwise be a lifeless text into discourse that meets the needs of participants. As a result, it is a universal aspect of our everyday language, and a major feature of the way we communicate in a range of genres and settings. Crismore (1989) has shown how metadiscourse has been present in writing from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the present, and has detailed its presence in discourses as distinct as poetry, science and biography.
因此,元话语这一概念在写作、阅读、修辞和文本结构研究中日益重要。研究表明,元话语在日常对话(Schiffrin,1980)、学校教科书(Crismore,1989)、口头叙述(Norrick,2001)、科普读物(Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1990)、本科教科书(Hyland,2000)、研究生论文(Bunton,1999;Hyland,2004a;Swales,1990)、达尔文的《物种起源》(Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1989)以及广告标语中都发挥着重要作用。(Fuertes-Olivera等人, 2001)和公司年报(Hyland,1998b)中均有发现。这种修辞手法似乎是多种语言和文体的特征,并已被用于研究不同文化群体文本的修辞差异(Mauranen,1993b;Crismore等人, 1993;Valero-Garces,1996)。此外,中世纪医学著作(Taavitsainen,1999)和17世纪晚期的科学论述(Atkinson,1999)中也发现了这种修辞手法。据说它有助于有效理解(Camiciottoli,2003),是优秀 ESL 和母语学生写作的特点(Intaraprawat 和 Steffensen,1995;Cheng 和 Steffensen,1996),并且是说服性和论证性话语的重要组成部分(Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1990;Hyland,1998a)。
The term is therefore an increasingly important concept in research in composition, reading, rhetoric and text structure. Studies have suggested the importance of metadiscourse in casual conversation (Schiffrin, 1980), school textbooks (Crismore, 1989), oral narratives (Norrick, 2001), science popularizations (Crismore and Farnsworth, 1990), undergraduate textbooks (Hyland, 2000), postgraduate dissertations (Bunton, 1999; Hyland, 2004a; Swales, 1990), Darwin’s Origin of Species (Crismore and Farnsworth, 1989), advertising slogans (Fuertes-Olivera et al., 2001) and company annual reports (Hyland, 1998b). It appears to be a characteristic of a range of languages and genres and has been used to investigate rhetorical differences in the texts written by different cultural groups (Mauranen, 1993b; Crismore et al., 1993; Valero-Garces, 1996). It has also been shown to be present in medieval medical writing (Taavitsainen, 1999) and in scientific discourse from the late seventeenth century (Atkinson, 1999). It is said to contribute to effective comprehension (Camiciottoli, 2003), be a feature of good ESL and native-speaker student writing (Intaraprawat and Steffensen, 1995; Cheng and Steffensen, 1996) and comprise an essential element of persuasive and argumentative discourse (Crismore and Farnsworth, 1990; Hyland, 1998a).
这项研究指出,元话语是促进沟通、支持立场、提高可读性以及与读者建立联系的重要手段。前一段表明,大多数研究都聚焦于将元话语作为书面话语的特征。这大概是因为写作在我们生活中具有举足轻重的地位,它在社交、职业和学术领域都扮演着重要角色,并且对决定我们的人生机遇至关重要。写作是我们个人经验和社会身份的核心,而对元话语运作机制的理解也可能在写作中发挥最大的作用。因此,元话语在学术写作教学中发挥了重要作用,它能够帮助英语母语者和非母语者有效地传达思想并与读者互动。学术写作也将是本书的重点,为了避免之前使用的笨拙的“作者/说话者”表述,从现在开始,我将用“作者”指代书面和口头文本的创作者,用“读者”指代接收者。
This research points to metadiscourse as an important means of facilitating communication, supporting a position, increasing readability and building a relationship with an audience. The previous paragraph shows that most of this research has focused on metadiscourse as a feature of written discourse. Presumably this is because of the overarching significance of writing in all our lives, its roles in social, professional and academic contexts, and the importance it has in determining our life chances. Writing is central to our personal experience and social identities, and it is in our writing that an understanding of the workings of metadiscourse is likely to have the greatest payoff. Metadiscourse has therefore been important in writing instruction for academic purposes, as a way of helping both native and non-native speakers of English to convey their ideas and engage with their readers effectively. Academic writing will also be the main emphasis of this book and to avoid the clumsy ‘writer/speaker’ phrasing I have used thus far, from here I will talk of writers to refer to the producers and readers to refer to the receivers of both written and spoken texts.
尽管元话语的研究和教学备受关注,但它从未发展成为书面话语分析的主要方法,也未能像最初期望的那样,对语言语域产生深刻的洞见。即使在学术写作这一研究较为成熟的领域,元话语研究也只是提供一些启发而非给出明确的结论,分析者们转而寻求其他概念,例如评价(Hunston和Thompson,2000)和参与(Hyland,2001a),认为这些概念或许能更有效地探索元话语。话语的人际特征。这主要是因为元话语起源于教学风格指南(Williams,1981)和直觉反思(Vande Kopple,1985),而这些理论基础不足以分析真实文本或理解作者如何进行有效沟通。
Yet despite this research and teaching interest in metadiscourse, it has never developed into a major analytical approach to written discourse, nor has it produced the insights into language registers that were originally hoped for. Even in the well-trodden terrain of academic writing, metadiscourse studies have been suggestive rather than definitive, and analysts have turned to other concepts such as evaluation (Hunston and Thompson, 2000) and engagement (Hyland, 2001a) as potentially more productive ways of exploring interpersonal features of discourse. This is largely because the origins of metadiscourse in pedagogic style guides (Williams, 1981) and intuitive reflection (Vande Kopple, 1985) provide an insufficiently solid theoretical foundation on which to analyse real texts or to understand how writers communicate effectively.
基于这些积极和消极的原因,元话语理论亟需重新审视,而这正是我在本书中着手做的事情。该概念的优势和局限性构成了本书的出发点,并由此确立了在理论和教学上都迫切需要我们更深入地探究元话语的本质、其蕴含的意义,以及如何使其在理论上更加严谨、在实证上更加实用、在教学上更加有效。
For these reasons, both positive and negative, metadiscourse is ready for re-examination and that is what I set out to do in this book. The strengths and limitations of the concept provide the starting point, establishing a theoretical and pedagogical imperative to look more closely at what metadiscourse is, what it tells us, and how it can be made more theoretically robust, empirically usable and pedagogically useful.
1.2 涌现的背景:信息与互动
1.2 A context of emergence: information and interaction
语篇分析是对语言使用情况的分析,即语言形式如何被用于社会目的——语言的用途。但当语言学家最初开始超越语法结构,探究人们在日常生活中实际如何使用语言时,他们往往对这些目的的理解较为局限,仅粗略地将语言的使用区分为事务性用途和互动性用途:前者用于表达“内容”,后者用于表达人际关系和态度(例如,Brown和Yule,1983;Jacobson,1960)。换言之,他们区分了信息交流和情感交流。
The analysis of discourse is the analysis of language in use, the ways linguistic forms are employed for social purposes – what language is used for. But when linguists first started to look beyond grammatical structures to see how people actually used language in their everyday lives, they tended to adopt a limited approach to what these purposes might be, drawing a broad distinction between transactional and interactional uses of language: the function which language serves to express ‘content’ and the function used to express personal relations and attitudes (e.g. Brown and Yule, 1983; Jacobson, 1960). In other words, a distinction was made between the communication of information and the communication of affect.
尽管理论家们承认任何现实生活中的言语表达都可能同时包含表达和评价两种功能,即我们同时进行思想的表达和评价,但他们仍然倾向于认为最重要的功能是信息的传递。因此,他们将注意力集中在命题意义以及说话者和作者表达思想的方式上。这本质上是17世纪哲学家洛克提出的观点,他推崇命题式和阐释式的表达方式,并将沟通的任务视为将词语与思想相匹配。正如 Coates (1987: 113) 指出的那样,“许多语言学家、哲学家和语义学家都有一种危险的倾向,即只关注语言的指称功能,而忽略其他所有功能”。
While acknowledging that any real-life utterance would probably involve both functions, that we simultaneously express and evaluate ideas, theorists nevertheless tended to assume that the most important one was the communication of information. They therefore devoted their attention to propositional meanings and the ways that speakers and writers expressed their ideas. This is essentially the view propounded by the philosopher Locke in the seventeenth century, favouring the propositional and expository mode of representation and seeing the job of communication as matching words to ideas. Since then, as Coates (1987: 113) points out, ‘there has been a dangerous tendency among many linguists, philosophers and semanticists to concentrate on the referential function of language at the expense of all the others’.
用语言来谈论我们的经历和想法显然是沟通的关键目的,也是我们每天都会遇到的情况,从与朋友在咖啡馆里分享度假经历到在走廊里讨论政治,无不体现着语言的作用。同样,语言传递信息的价值也深深植根于我们的文化神话中,被视为人类发展和多样性的源泉,以及哲学、宗教、文学和科学的基础。学者们常常认为他们的主要工作是“传播知识”,而媒体则将现代社会描述为一个新的“信息时代”。因此,语言学家们特别关注语言的这一方面,并将书面语言视为寻找这一方面的最佳途径。
The use of language to talk about our experiences and ideas is obviously a key purpose of communication and one that we encounter every day, from exchanging holiday experiences with friends over coffee to discussing politics in the corridor. Equally, the value of language to transmit information is ingrained in our cultural mythology as the source of human development and diversity, and the basis of philosophy, religion, literature and science. Academics themselves often believe that what they mainly do is ‘communicate knowledge’ and the media characterize modern society as a new ‘information age’. Consequently linguists have given particular attention to this aspect of language and focused on written language as the best place to find it.
辛克莱(Sinclair,1981)提出的话语互动层面和自主层面的区分,为这种方法提供了一种更为精细的替代方案。基本上,辛克莱认为语言的表征功能,即其指称世界事物的能力,是既定的,而他关注的是语言如何帮助参与者“分享他们的经验,而不仅仅是信息”(Sinclair,1981:xx)。这是通过话语的自主层面和互动层面来实现的。自主层面指的是通过组织和维护文本结构来逐步展开经验记录的过程。它只关注语言本身,而不关注语言与外部世界的关系,它允许参与者通过回忆先前的词语,并在话语进行过程中将其重新组合到新的语境中,从而分享相关的经验。另一方面,互动层面则关注我们如何运用语言与他人协商,并以互动的方式呈现文本,从而与读者建立联系。
A more sophisticated alternative to this approach was Sinclair’s (1981) distinction between interactive and autonomous planes of discourse. Basically, Sinclair takes the representational role of language, its ability to signify matters in the world, as given and instead focuses on how it assists participants to ‘share their experiences and not just their information’ (Sinclair, 1981: xx). This is accomplished through the autonomous and interactive planes of discourse. The autonomous plane refers to the gradual unfolding of a record of experience through the organization and maintenance of text structure. This is concerned with language only, rather than the ways it is related to the world outside, and allows participants to share relevant experience by recalling previous words and reworking them into new contexts as the discourse progresses. The interactive plane, on the other hand, concerns the ways we use language to negotiate with others and present our texts interactively, so creating a relationship with the reader.
换句话说,语言并非仅仅用来传递关于世界的信息。它还能通过文本自身的组织方式(在自主层面)呈现这些信息,并引导读者如何理解这些信息(在互动层面)。因此,语句同时具有面向文本之外的世界和面向读者理解的双重属性。通过文本本身来理解那个世界。这与事务性-互动性区分的模式截然不同,而且,正如我们将在第三章中看到的,作者可以提及、评价和评论话语实体和现实世界实体,这是元话语的一个决定性特征。
In other words, language is not simply used to convey information about the world. It also acts to present this information through the organization of the text itself (on the autonomous plane) and engage readers as to how they should understand it (on the interactive plane). Statements thus, simultaneously, have an orientation to the world outside the text and an orientation to the reader’s understanding of that world through the text itself. This is a very different model to the transactional–interactional distinction and, as we shall see in Chapter 3, the fact that writers can r efer to, evaluate and otherwise comment on both discourse entities and real-world entities is a defining feature of metadiscourse.
但在20世纪80年代初期,辛克莱尔几乎是唯一一位强调语言互动性重要性的人。当时,直到最近,关于语言如何用于协商关系和构建互动框架的研究主要由社会学家和社会语言学家负责。事实上,社会学家贝特森(1972)和戈夫曼(1974)关于“框架”的研究是早期发展的重要成果,并最终促成了元话语的语言学概念。框架的概念指的是我们对特定情境的认知或概念性看法,包括我们如何命名或描述所说的话。尤其值得关注的是麦克拉克伦和里德(1994)提出的“文本内框架”,它指的是当我们关注文本内部的组织机制如何影响词语的流动,从而引导读者进行解读时所发生的现象。这种框架结构被视为一种限制读者解读自由、控制文本理解的手段,旨在抑制读者可能提出的其他解读框架。因此,框架是话语的一个组成部分,它使我们能够以特定的方式理解信息和世界。
But in the early 1980s, Sinclair was almost alone in emphasizing the importance of interactional aspects of language. At that time, and until recently, research into the ways language is used to negotiate relationships and scaffold interaction was largely left to sociologists and sociolinguists. In fact, work by the sociologists Bateson (1972) and Goffman (1974) on ‘frames’ was an important early development leading to linguistic conceptions of metadiscourse. The notion of frames refers to our cognitive or conceptual views of particular situations, including the ways we name or characterize what is being said. Of particular interest is what MacLachlan and Reid (1994) call ‘intratextual framing’, which occurs when we pay attention to the way in which the flow of words within the text is affected by internal organizational devices which guide interpretation. Such framing devices are seen as an effort to limit the reader’s interpretive licence and control understandings of a text in competition with alternative framing brought to the text by the reader. Frames are therefore aspects of discourse which allow us to orient to messages and understand the world in particular ways.
雷根和霍珀(1981)关于“对齐”的讨论同样有助于将话语的互动层面凸显出来,揭示了语言如何使使用者能够塑造积极的自我形象,并与听话者协商参与者的角色。但或许是另一位研究日常对话的社会语言学家黛比·希夫林(1980)在元话语理论的早期发展中发挥了最大的推动作用。她通过展示诸如“我告诉你”和“让我举个例子”之类的“元话语”如何使说话者能够通过将自己塑造成话语的推动者来改变其在话语中的角色,从而推动了元话语概念的发展。因此,对话者通常会通过提及谈话的组织或评价方面,从信息的呈现者转变为有意识且明确的话语生产者。这些学者的研究和见解因此为确立谈话的重要性提供了重要的推动力。并未直接涉及主题信息以及探索该主题的方法。
Ragan and Hopper’s (1981) discussion of ‘alignment’ similarly helped to bring interactional aspects of discourse into focus, showing how language allows users to promote a positive impression of themselves and to negotiate participant roles with the hearer. But it was another sociolinguist working on casual conversation, Debbie Schiffrin (1980), who perhaps struck the biggest blow for metadiscourse in these early days. She helped move the notion of metadiscourse forward by showing how ‘meta-talk’ such as ‘I’m telling you that’ and ‘let me give you an example’ allows speakers to change their role in the discourse by projecting themselves as an animator. Thus conversationalists commonly move from presenting information to becoming a conscious and explicit producer of the discourse itself by referring to organizational or evaluative aspects of the talk. The research and insights of such writers therefore provided an important impetus to establishing the importance of talk which did not directly concern topic information and to developing ways of exploring this.
毫无疑问,在许多情况下,确保接收者理解发送者试图传达的信息至关重要,而清晰度是实现这一目标的关键因素。但沟通显然远不止于此。“信息性”语言观几乎完全忽略了一点:所有话语,无论其“信息性”多么明确,都是在参与者之间产生的,而参与者本身就带有特定的关系、经验、期望和背景认知。这些人际维度会影响他们如何解读和回应信息,以及如何参与互动。20世纪80年代,元话语概念被引入应用语言学领域,它建立在社会语言学关于话语层面、框架、对齐和元话语等概念的基础之上,这在很大程度上是对过度强调语言命题层面的回应,也是对语言使用始终依赖于社会和交际维度并为其自身创造这一重要原则的尝试。
There is no doubt that in many contexts it is crucial that recipients get the information that the sender is trying to convey, and that clarity is a major consideration in achieving this aim. But there is obviously more to communication than this. What the ‘informational’ view of language almost completely ignores is that all discourse, no matter how explicitly ‘informational’, is created between participants who bring to the encounter certain affiliations, experiences, expectations and background understandings. These interpersonal dimensions influence how they will interpret and respond to the message and how they will engage in the interaction. The introduction of metadiscourse into the applied linguistics vocabulary in the 1980s, building on sociolinguistic conceptions of planes of discourse, frames, alignment and meta-talk, was largely a reaction to this overemphasis on the propositional aspects of language and an attempt to establish the important principle that language use always draws on, and creates for itself, a social and communicative dimension.
1.3 元话语与受众意识
1.3 Metadiscourse and audience awareness
当然,语言的“信息性”和“互动性”是并行运用的观点并非新观点。早在1923年,马林诺夫斯基就指出,人们同时运用语言来传递命题信息和“创造并维持表达意义”。近年来,语用学(Fraser,1990)、英语语言教学(Skelton,1988)、学术写作(Chafe,1986)和批判性话语分析(Fairclough,1992)等领域的学者也提出了类似的观点。以下摘录自一篇大学讲座的开头,便可从中了解这一观点在实践中的具体含义:
The idea that ‘informative’ and ‘interactional’ aspects of language are used in tandem is not new, of course. Even as far back as 1923 Malinowski argued that people use language simultaneously to convey propositional information and ‘to create and sustain expressive meanings’, while more recently writers in fields such as pragmatics (Fraser, 1990), English Language teaching (Skelton, 1988), academic writing (Chafe, 1986) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1992) have made similar observations. What this means in practice can be seen from this short extract from the beginning of a university lecture:
1 好,大家都能听到我说话吗?好的,这是今天的安排,我要讲的是女性的工作。讲义现在正在分发,嗯,我会在十一点十分左右结束,然后我会分发期中试卷,
1 Okay can everybody hear me okay? Okay, alright this is the schedule for today, I’m gonna lecture on women’s work. The notes are being passed out now, and, uh I’ll, finish up at around ten after eleven, then I will hand out the midterm, and
5. 嗯,我会花一点时间简单讲解一下期中考试,确保你们都明白期中考试的要求,好吗?我想提醒大家,周四没有课。这是为了给你们一些时间准备期中考试,嗯,如果你打算在课堂上写期中试卷的话。
5 um I will discuss the midterm, for a while a little bit, to make sure that all of you understand, what’s expected of you in the midterm okay? I wanna remind you that we do not have class meeting on Thursday. This is to give you a chance to work on the midterm, um if you’re writing the midterm in class
10号,你们要在课堂上进行期中考试,所以,花点时间好好思考一下。这也给了你们一个机会,在本周结束前联系我或者你们的助教,这样如果你们对期中考试有任何疑问,都可以问他们。我不会安排答疑时间。
10 you’d be writing the midterm in class so, spend some time on thinking about the midterm. It also will give you a chance to, get in touch with me or, um, your G-S-I before the end of the week, so that if you have questions about the midterm, uh you can ask them. Now I won’t be holding office hours
周四上午15号,但我可以在周四下午晚些时候与任何迫切需要见我的人见面,所以如果你需要,请给我发邮件好吗?我们可以安排时间见面好吗?现在,还有什么程序方面的问题吗?期中考试在课堂上交,日期是……
15 Thursday morning but I will be, uh able to meet with anybody who feels desperate in need to meet with me in the late afternoon on Thursday so if you do, email me okay? And we can, set up some time to meet okay? Now uh are there any qu- procedural questions? The midterm is due in class, on,
20号星期二,对吧?这样说得通吗?
20 Tuesday, right? Does that make sense?
大型正式讲座或许是信息传递的典型形式。它强调信息传递而非协商,强调独白而非对话,因此被大学视为以相对较低的成本向大班学生传授内容信息的最佳方式。虽然这段摘录出自讲座的开头几分钟,因此可能比后面的内容更具对话性,但我们仍然可以看出,其中既包含信息传递的元素,也包含互动元素。其中包含一系列“例行事项”通知,例如:为了方便学生完成作业,下一节课取消(第7-11行);学生可以就此提问(第11-14行);学生可以与讲师见面(第14-19行);以及论文的截止日期(第19-20行)。除了这些关于课程及其要求的、本质上是对世界的陈述之外,还有一些语句旨在引起人们对话语本身及其可能接受方式的关注。这些元话语陈述涉及话语的组织方式以及说话者想要与听众建立的关系等信息。
The large-scale formal lecture is perhaps the prototypical genre of information transfer. Emphasizing transmission over negotiation and monologue rather than dialogue, it is seen by universities as the best way to impart content information to large classes relatively cheaply. While this extract is from the opening minutes of the lecture, and so perhaps rather more dialogic than what follows it, we can see that there are both informational and interactional elements in the segment. There is a series of ‘housekeeping’ announcements about the fact that the next lecture is cancelled to allow the students to work on their assignment (lines 7–11), about when students can ask questions about this (lines 11–14) and meet the lecturer (lines 14–19), and about when the paper is due (lines 19–20). Intertwined with this information about the course and its requirements, which are essentially statements about the world, there are statements which call attention to the discourse itself and its possible reception. These metadiscoursal statements concern information about how the discourse will be organized and about the relationship the speaker wants to establish with his audience.
因此,演讲者首先检查频道是否正常工作(第1行),然后预览会议内容。并预判接下来的事件模式。他通过给出讲座主题并宣布将分发和讨论作业(第1-7行),为学生们提供了一个课堂框架,让他们对课程内容有所预期。这种预告着重于讨论接下来的谈话和行动,而非亲自进行这些行动,而是对谈话内容进行评述。
Thus, the speaker opens with a check to see if the channel is working effectively (line 1) then goes on to preview the session and anticipate the pattern of events which will follow. He provides a frame for what the students can expect from the class by giving the topic for the lecture and announcing that the assignment will be distributed and discussed (lines 1–7). This previewing talks about the talk and actions which will follow, rather than performing these acts themselves, acting as a commentary on the discourse.
讲师随后强调了自己的权威,并通过说明他讨论这些内容的目的(“确保你们都明白期中考试的要求,好吗?”)来确保学生认识到这项作业的重要性。这种权威性也体现在说话者的用词选择上:他“提醒”学生下次课的内容,并引导他们思考期中考试。询问学生是否有任何问题,并以疑问句的形式强调截止日期,有助于缓和这种权威感,建立更融洽的关系。最后的确认性问题则起到了结束这一部分的作用,试图降低学生对考试任务的紧张感。此外,说话者还穿插使用了一些语用技巧,例如“好的”和“没问题”,这些技巧有助于在讨论不同话题时界定语篇的界限,并从人际互动的角度促进交流。
The lecturer then underlines his authority and ensures that students recognize the importance of the assignment by stating why he intends to discuss the material (‘to make sure that all of you understand what’s expected in the midterm okay?’). This authority is also clear in the speaker’s lexical choices: ‘reminding’ students about the next class and directing them to think about the midterm. Asking if there are any questions and focusing the students on the due date by presenting this as an interrogative helps to soften this authority and establish greater rapport, with the final checking question acting to close the segment with an attempt to reduce the threat of the assessment task. Also sprinkled throughout are pragmatic devices such as okay and alright which help to frame boundaries in the discourse as the speaker moves from one issue to another, and to oil the interaction from an interpersonal perspective.
总之,并非所有出现在这类“信息体裁”中的内容都能有效地传递信息。说话者和作者力求确保他们呈现的信息不仅清晰易懂,而且能够被理解、接受,并在许多情况下被付诸行动。受众必须被吸引、参与,并被激励去理解、参与,甚至可能受到话语的影响或说服。为了达到这个目的,发送者会努力根据受众的预期和需求来调整文本。
In sum, not everything that occurs in such ‘informational genres’ works to convey information. Speakers and writers seek to ensure that the information they present is not only distinct and intelligible, but also understood, accepted and, in many cases, acted upon. Addressees have to be drawn in, engaged, motivated to follow along, participate, and perhaps be influenced or persuaded by a discourse. To do this, senders endeavour to shape their texts to the anticipated expectations and requirements of receivers.
1.4 元话语、互动与受众
1.4 Metadiscourse, interaction and audience
因此,将写作视为一种互动,意味着要从作者对潜在读者的感知、兴趣和需求的投射角度来审视话语特征。管理社会关系在写作中至关重要,因为只有当文本能够有效地传达信息时,它才能发挥作用。作者正确地评估了读者解读文章的资源以及他们可能的反应。这在一定程度上是通过运用元话语实现的。
To view writing as interactive therefore means examining discourse features in terms of the writer’s projection of the perceptions, interests and needs of a potential audience. Managing social relationships is crucial in writing because a text communicates effectively only when the writer has correctly assessed both the readers’ resources for interpreting it and their likely response to it. This is, in part, achieved through the use of metadiscourse.
Grabe 和 Kaplan (1996: 207–11) 指出了影响写作的五个主要受众参数:
Grabe and Kaplan (1996: 207–11) point to five main parameters of audience that influence writing:
1.读者的数量——无论是为自己、一个人、一小群人还是一个大型的异质群体而写,都会对语言和修辞选择产生影响。
1. The number of readers – whether a text is written for oneself, a single person, a small group or a large heterogeneous group will have an impact on linguistic and rhetorical choices.
2.读者是否认识——与读者的亲近程度可能会影响文本中互动和参与特征的程度(例如 Biber,1988)。
2. Whether readers are known or unknown – the degree of closeness to the reader is likely to influence the extent of interactional and involvement features in the text (e.g. Biber, 1988).
3.参与者的相对地位——元话语选择也会因作者与读者地位的平等或低劣而有所不同。在口语语境中,平等地位似乎会促成更多的互动协商(Wolfson,1989)。
3. The relative status of participants – metadiscourse choices will also vary depending on whether the writer has an equal or lower status than the reader. In spoken contexts it seems that equal status creates more interactional negotiation (Wolfson, 1989).
4.共同背景知识的程度——作者在使用元话语时可能会更加明确地假设读者对相关问题的文化、制度或社会知识缺乏了解。
4. The extent of shared background knowledge – writers are likely to be more explicit in their use of metadiscourse where they assume the reader’s lack of cultural, institutional or social familiarity with issues.
5.特定主题知识的共享程度——作者在多大程度上可以依赖读者了解该主题,不仅会影响可以包含的细节量,还会影响通过代码注释来阐述想法和假设、所需的证据支持量、明确过渡的频率等等。
5. The extent to which specific topical knowledge is shared – how far writers can rely on readers knowing about the topic will influence not only the amount of detail that can be included, but also the elaboration of ideas and assumptions through code glosses, the amount of evidential support required, the frequency of explicit transitions, and so on.
然而,“受众”的概念向来难以捉摸。一些分析家认为,受众是文本之外的真实人物,作者必须考虑并迁就他们;而另一些分析家则认为,受众是作者通过修辞选择所塑造的虚构形象(Kirsch and Roen, 1990; Park, 1986)。事实上,在私人信件、面对面交谈等类似文体之外,“受众”很少是一个已知且稳定的现实。在许多情况下,我们并不确切知道我们的目标受众是谁。大量的专业和学术写作,例如,一篇作品可能面向多个读者群体,这一点在我们生活中许多重要的写作中尤为突出,因为这些作品会受到考官、雇主、客户和其他把关人的评估。本质上,读者群体代表了作者对构成修辞语境的各种情况的认知,以及当前文本与其他文本之间的关联或契合方式。作者通过借鉴过去在类似语境下(无论是作为读者还是作者)接触过的文本知识来构建读者群体,并依赖于读者识别文本间互文性或相似之处的能力。
The notion of audience, however, is notoriously elusive. For some analysts, audience is real people outside a text whom the writer must consider and accommodate, while for others it is a fiction embodied in the writer’s rhetorical choices (Kirsch and Roen, 1990; Park, 1986). Audience is, in fact, outside the context of personal letters, face-to-face conversation and similar genres, rarely a known and stable reality. In many settings we do not have exact knowledge about who we are addressing. A great deal of professional and academic writing, for example, may have multiple audiences and this is particularly true of much of the significant writing we do in our lives, which is evaluated by examiners, employers, clients and other gatekeepers. Essentially then, audience represents the writer’s awareness of the circumstances which define a rhetorical context and the ways that the current text is related to or aligned with other texts. Writers construct an audience by drawing on their knowledge of texts they have encountered in similar settings in the past, either as readers or writers, and by relying on readers’ abilities to similarly recognize intertextuality, or resemblances, between texts.
知识重叠的程度对我们构建意义的方式至关重要。在共享理解的连续谱的一端,为自己写作允许很多信息留白,例如,我们通常可以轻松地从笔记或购物清单中重构出更完整的含义。此时,元话语可能极少,文本将接近完全概念化的话语。在连续谱的另一端,我们为一群几乎不认识的读者写作,例如在简报或销售传单中,或者写作的主题对读者来说是全新的,或者他们很可能不认同。在这种情况下,写作需要更加明确,作者需要运用各种修辞技巧来帮助读者理解内容并引导他们的反应。
The extent of knowledge overlap is crucial to the ways we construct meanings. At one end of a continuum of shared understandings, writing for oneself allows a lot to be left unsaid, so, for example, we usually have little trouble reconstructing fuller meanings from a set of notes or a shopping list. Metadiscourse here is likely to be minimal and the text will approach the extremes of a fully ideational discourse. At the other end of the continuum there is the situation where we are writing for a largely unknown audience, as in a newsletter or a sales flier, or on a subject that is either new to readers or something they are likely to disagree with. Here writing needs to be far more explicit and writers need to draw on a host of rhetorical techniques to help readers understand the material and guide their responses to it.
大多数情况下,我们解读遇到的文本并不困难,这通常是因为我们本身就是作者的目标受众之一。即使受众群体较为复杂,例如群发的销售信或发送给大型企业全体员工的电子邮件,我们也能识别出作者的写作目的及其旨在营造的语境。我们通常可以判断出是谁写的,写给谁的,为什么写,以及它成功的可能性。一般来说,能够帮助我们理解语境和受众特征的关键在于作者选择的元话语特征。这是因为,构建一个令人信服的读者环境需要运用元话语资源,使最终文本由作者和目标受众共同创作。作者选择的正式程度、文本中蕴含的权力、社会地位和熟悉程度、隐含的共识等等,都对理解文本语境和受众特征起到了至关重要的作用。文中引用的文化或社群知识都可以带有元话语的痕迹。这些信号能够以不同的方式吸引读者,并为我们理解作者与读者之间的关系以及作者在写作过程中的目标提供重要的线索。
In most cases we have little trouble in decoding the texts we encounter, often because we are among the writer’s intended recipients. Even when the audience is a heterogeneous one, such as with a mass mailshot sales letter or an email addressed to all employees of a large corporation, we are able to identify the writer’s purposes and the context it was designed to create. We can usually say who wrote it, for whom, why, and its likely chances of success. Generally, what enables us to recover something of the characteristics of that context and audience are the metadiscourse features the writer has chosen to use. This is because creating a convincing reader-environment involves deploying metadiscoursal resources so that the final text is co-produced by the author and by members of the audience to which it is directed. The degree of formality chosen by the writer, the power, social status and familiarity encoded in the text, the shared understandings implied, and the cultural or community knowledge drawn on, can all be marked with metadiscourse. These signals can appeal to readers in different ways and provide important clues about the writer–reader relationship and the writer’s goals in the encounter.
在任何特定语境下,互动都会受到作者写作目的和文体的影响,但格雷布和卡普兰的参数提醒我们,互动也涉及作者对自身与读者之间个人关系的感知。在决定建立平等还是等级关系、采取参与还是疏离的姿态、选择友好还是冷漠的人际语气时,我们至少在一定程度上会受到所在机构主流意识形态的制约。但这些选择也在一定程度上取决于目标读者的数量以及我们对他们的了解程度。根据布朗和莱文森(1987)的观点,作者会根据与读者之间的社会距离、权力差异以及对读者施加的约束程度来评估读者。通过权衡这些变量,作者可以决定在多大程度上可以直率、参与、非正式、友好或强硬。例如,写给朋友的信与写给陌生人的信在非正式程度、互动参与度以及建立共同话题所需的展开程度方面显然截然不同。
While interaction is influenced by the writer’s purpose and genre in any particular context, Grabe and Kaplan’s parameters remind us that it also involves the writer’s sense of his or her personal relationship with readers. In deciding whether to establish an equal or hierarchical affiliation, adopt an involved or remote stance, or chose a convivial or indifferent interpersonal tenor, we are at least partly constrained by the dominant ideologies of our institutions. But these choices also depend to some extent on the number of intended readers and how far they are personally known to us. Following Brown and Levinson (1987), writers make evaluations of their readers in terms of the social distance between them, the power difference between them, and the scale of the imposition being made on the reader. By weighing up these variables, writers decide how far they can be direct, involved, informal, friendly or forceful. A letter to a friend, for instance, will obviously be very different to one written to a stranger in terms of informality, interactional involvement and the amount of topic elaboration needed to establish common ground.
因此,元话语是文本与其语境之间重要的纽带,因为它揭示了读者对特定互动和参与形式的期望。它通过作者与读者沟通的方式及其对读者需求的理解,凸显了话语的对话性作用。这些期望是社会性的、情感性的和认知性的,基于参与者的信念和价值观、个人目标以及他们过去阅读类似文本的经验。换言之,文本必须以读者或听众感到熟悉和可接受的方式与他们对话,这意味着理解和参与的过程不仅仅取决于信息的清晰度,还取决于作者或发言者对共享语境的投射。也就是说,在追求个人和职业目标的过程中,信息发送者力求将他们的话语嵌入到他们通过特定且被认可的话语所反映和构建的特定社会世界中。
Metadiscourse is therefore an important link between a text and its context as it points to the expectations readers have for certain forms of interactions and engagement. It highlights the dialogic role of discourse by revealing a writer’s understanding of an audience through the ways that he or she addresses readers and their needs. These expectations are social, affective and cognitive, based on participants’ beliefs and values, their individual goals and their experiences with similar texts in the past. In other words, a text has to talk to readers or hearers in ways that they find familiar and acceptable, which means that the processes of comprehension and participation are not just a matter of informational clarity, but of the individual writer’s or speaker’s projection of a shared context. That is, in pursuing their personal and professional goals, senders seek to embed their discourse in a particular social world which they reflect and conjure up through particular recognized and accepted discourses.
1.5 总结与结论
1.5 Summary and conclusion
本章旨在阐述这样一种观点:所有言语和写作,无论是专业、学术还是个人层面,都包含指向文本生产者、假想的接收者以及不断演变的文本本身的表达方式。我还论证了这些表达方式提供了关于参与者、正在构建的话语类型以及语境的信息。这些表达方式统称为元话语:它们是文本中明确组织话语或作者对文本内容或读者的立场的要素。在将元话语的概念与特定的社会、文化和制度语境联系起来时,我遵循了费格利(Faigley,1986:535)的观点,即话语“只能从社会而非单个个体的视角来理解”,以及格尔茨(Geertz,1983)的观点,即知识和写作依赖于当地社群成员的行动。因此,以这种方式看待交流,便能唤起人们对影响作者并激发其对重复性任务的特定反应的社会环境的认识。因此,与其关注信息的呈现方式,并将所有伴随而来的东西视为风格的规律,不如元话语鼓励我们去考察这些特征,从中寻找与他人进行社会互动的痕迹。
In this chapter I have sought to elaborate the view that all speech and writing, whether professional, academic or personal, includes expressions which refer to the text producer, the imagined receiver and the evolving text itself. I have also argued that these expressions provide information about the participants, the kind of discourse that is being constructed, and the context. These expressions are, collectively, referred to as metadiscourse: aspects of a text which explicitly organize a discourse or the writer’s stance towards either its content or the reader. In relating the idea of metadiscourse to specific social, cultural and institutional contexts, I follow Faigley’s (1986: 535) claim that discourse ‘can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a single individual’ and Geertz’s (1983) view that knowledge and writing depend on the actions of members of local communities. Looking at communication in this way therefore evokes a social milieu which influences the writer and activates specific responses to recurring tasks. So rather than focusing on the ways information is presented and regarding all that accompanies this as regularities of style, metadiscourse encourages us to examine these features for traces of social interactions with others.
元话语的概念基于这样一种观点:写作(以及口语)是一种社会交际活动,它提供了一种理解我们如何将自身投射到文本中以管理交际意图的方法。这一术语的出现,旨在重新确立语言人际互动方面的重要性。此前,语言学家几乎完全关注语言如何传递信息。随着话语分析作为理解语言使用的重要工具而不断发展,写作中互动的重要性与口语中互动的重要性一样日益凸显,而元话语的出现正是为了凸显这些互动特征。简而言之,我们现在认识到,如果没有元话语,读者将无法理解文本的语境,作者也无法进行有效的沟通。
The concept of metadiscourse is based on a view of writing (and speaking) as a social and communicative engagement, offering a means of understanding the ways we project ourselves into our texts to manage our communicative intentions. The term has emerged to help re-establish the importance of interpersonal aspects of language following a period when linguists were almost exclusively concerned with the ways language is used to convey information. With the growth of discourse analysis as a key tool in understanding language use, the importance of interaction in writing as much as in speech has become ever more obvious, and metadiscourse has emerged as a way of bringing these interactional features to prominence. In short, we now recognize that without metadiscourse readers would be unable to contextualize a text and writers unable to communicate effectively.
尽管元话语的概念引起了广泛关注,但其描述和解释潜力仍未得到充分发展,仍处于萌芽阶段。由于其起源于风格指南和纸上谈兵式的思考,因此缺乏坚实的理论基础和实证验证。其中一个核心问题是,元话语的定义往往含糊不清,且在对其所涵盖的特征进行分类时缺乏严谨性。这些问题将在接下来的两章中展开讨论。
Yet while the concept has generated considerable interest, its descriptive and explanatory potential has remained undeveloped and embryonic. Its origins in style guides and armchair contemplation mean that it has lacked both solid theoretical underpinning and empirical validation. A central problem here is a tendency towards vagueness in defining metadiscourse and a lack of rigour in classifying the features it is supposed to encompass. These are the issues I turn to in the next two chapters.
Definitions, issues and classifications
在勾勒出大致轮廓之后,我现在想补充一些细节,更仔细地探讨分析家们如何定义元话语,他们在识别元话语时所做的区分,以及他们提出的分类方案。本质上,“元话语”是一个总括性术语,用来涵盖一系列看似异质的衔接和人际特征,这些特征有助于将文本与其语境联系起来。由于可用于组织话语或作者对话语的立场的资源多种多样且可能非常庞大,因此对元话语的分类和描述本身也多种多样且范围广泛。在本章中,我将重点关注人们对元话语的理解方式,考察该术语的现有定义,并探讨其背后的命题、意义层次和功能等关键概念。
Having painted a broad outline, I now want to fill in some of the detail and look a little more closely at how analysts define metadiscourse, the kinds of distinctions they make in identifying it, and the classification schemes they have proposed. Essentially, ‘metadiscourse’ is an umbrella term, used to include an apparently heterogeneous array of cohesive and interpersonal features which help relate a text to its context. Because the resources which can be employed to organize a discourse or the writer’s stance towards it are diverse and potentially huge, classifications and descriptions of metadiscourse have themselves been diverse and wide-ranging. In this chapter I will therefore focus on the way metadiscourse has been understood by looking at current definitions of the term and exploring the key notions of proposition, levels of meaning and function which underlie it.
2.1 元话语的定义
2.1 Definitions of metadiscourse
元话语一直是一个含义模糊的术语,通常被简单地描述为“关于话语的话语”或“关于话语的谈话”,这些定义强调了它向内审视、指向文本自身各个方面的功能。但这对于一个具有巨大潜力的概念来说,是一种非常片面且不令人满意的理解,该概念不仅能够涵盖描述我们如何组织思想的语言特征,但也包括我们如何与读者或听众建立联系。斯韦尔斯(1990:188)和纳什(1992)都注意到了这种模糊性,他们指出,虽然这个概念在原则上很容易接受,但要确定它的边界却更加困难:
Metadiscourse has always been something of a fuzzy term, often characterized as simply ‘discourse about discourse’ or ‘talk about talk’, definitions which highlight its role of looking inward to refer to aspects of the text itself. But this is a very partial and unsatisfactory view of a concept which has enormous potential to include features of language which describe not only how we organize our ideas, but also how we relate to our readers or listeners. This fuzziness is remarked on by Swales (1990: 188) and by Nash (1992), who observes that while the concept is easy to accept in principle, it is more difficult to establish its boundaries:
“元话语”一词或许听起来客观、科学,令人安心,但它的用法表明,其定义边界并不比“修辞”或“风格”等词的边界更清晰。一位读者可能从中感受到明显的风格意图,而另一位读者则可能将其视为平庸的、“机械化”的语言运用。
The word ‘metadiscourse’ may have a reassuringly objective, ‘scientific’ ring, but its usage suggests boundaries of definition no more firmly drawn than those of, say, ‘rhetoric’ or ‘style’. One reader may perceive a clear stylistic intention in something which another reader dismisses as a commonplace, ‘automatized’ use of language.
(纳什,1992:100)
(Nash, 1992: 100)
然而,我认为,作者对其文本展开的评论代表了一系列连贯的人际互动选择。虽然我们使用的措辞和表达有时看似“自动”或无意识,但所有语言使用都包含从有限的选项系统中做出选择。例如,现代语言学领军人物迈克尔·哈利迪认为,语言是一个“意义系统”。因此,我们在与他人互动时所做的决定,例如使用主动语态还是被动语态、使用肯定句还是限定句、使用对比连词还是并列连词等等,都是出于在特定情境下表达特定意义的意图。事实上,正是这些选择既构建了这些情境,又被这些情境所构建(Halliday,1994)。元话语分析的关键贡献在于,它帮助我们理解我们常常无意识地做出的语言选择与我们做出这些选择的社会语境之间的关系。
I would want to argue, however, that the writer’s commentary on his or her unfolding text represents a coherent set of interpersonal options. And while the phrasing and expressions we use may sometimes seem ‘automatic’ or unconscious, all language use consists of making choices from a system of finite options. Michael Halliday, the leading modern linguist, for example, argues that language is a ‘system of meanings’. The decisions we make when interacting with others, whether to use an active or passive verb, a categorical or hedged assertion, a contrastive or additive conjunction, and so on, are therefore choices motivated by intentions to express certain meanings in specific situations. Indeed, it is those choices which both construct and are constructed by those situations (Halliday, 1994). Assisting us to see the relationships between the often unconscious language choices we make and the social contexts in which we make them is the key contribution of metadiscourse to the study of language use.
但模糊性依然存在。例如,并非所有分析家都以相同的方式理解这个术语。一些学者将该术语限定于修辞组织特征,仅包括那些指向文本本身的文本元素,例如“我们现在转向另一个话题”或“这将在下一章讨论”,并将此描述为元文本或文本反身性(例如,Bunton,1999;Mauranen,1993a,1993b;Valero-Garces,1996)。另一些学者则将该术语缩小到明确的言语行为谓词,例如“我相信”和“我们证明”(Beauvais,1989)。这两种方法都试图……通过简化研究对象来解决该术语的理论难题和分析问题。
But fuzziness remains. Not all analysts understand the term in the same way, for instance. Some writers have restricted the term to features of rhetorical organization by including only those text elements which refer to the text itself, such as ‘we now turn to another topic’ or ‘this will be discussed in the next chapter’, describing this as metatext or text reflexivity (e.g. Bunton, 1999; Mauranen, 1993a, 1993b; Valero-Garces, 1996). Others have narrowed the term to explicit illocutionary predicates, such as ‘I believe that’ and ‘we demonstrate that’ (Beauvais, 1989). Both approaches attempt to address theoretical difficulties with the term and resolve analytical problems by simplifying what is studied.
文本反思性这一概念尤为有趣,因为它将元话语视为作者对文本本身的意识阐释,而非对读者的意识阐释。莫拉宁(Mauranen,1993a)称之为元话语的“非整合式”进路,并认为排除评价和人际特征有助于澄清和深化元话语的概念。这是一个有趣且有用的见解,它试图通过仅包含文本指涉内容来避免区分元话语和非元话语材料时遇到的困难。然而,这种划分似乎有些武断。元话语揭示了作者对读者的意识,以及读者对阐释、澄清、指导和互动的需求。在表达对文本的意识时,作者也让读者意识到文本的存在,而这只有在作者有明确的、以读者为中心的理由时才会发生。换句话说,吸引读者注意文本内容体现了作者的目标,即评估读者对指导或阐释的需求。正如我稍后将论证的,这是一种清晰、以读者为中心且人际交往能力强的策略。
The notion of text reflexivity is particularly interesting as it sees metadiscourse as the explication of the writer’s awareness of the text itself, rather than of the reader. Mauranen (1993a) calls this a ‘non-integrative’ approach to metadiscourse and argues that the decision to exclude evaluation and interpersonal features helps to clarify and sharpen the concept of metadiscourse. This is an interesting and useful insight which seeks to avoid the difficulties encountered in distinguishing metadiscoursal from non-metadiscoursal material by including only text-referential matter. It does, however, seem a rather arbitrary separation to make. Metadiscourse reveals the writer’s awareness of the reader and his or her need for elaboration, clarification, guidance and interaction. In expressing an awareness of the text, the writer also makes the reader aware of it, and this only happens when he or she has a clear, reader-oriented reason for doing so. In other words, drawing attention to the text represents a writer’s goals relative to an assessment of the readers’ need for guidance or elaboration. This is, as I will argue later, a clear, reader-oriented and interpersonal strategy.
然而,修辞学家、应用语言学家和写作理论家普遍认同以更广义的方式使用元话语,指代用于引导读者理解文本的各种语言符号,从而使读者能够理解文本内容和作者的立场。它是作者在文本中“将话语组织和所说内容的表达含义置于括号之外”的一种表现形式(Schiffrin,1980:231)。
Generally, however, rhetoricians, applied linguists and composition theorists agree on using metadiscourse in a wider sense, to refer to the various linguistic tokens employed to guide or direct a reader through a text so both the text and the writer’s stance is understood. It is the author’s manifestation in a text to ‘bracket the discourse organisation and the expressive implications of what is being said’ (Schiffrin, 1980: 231).
目前为止一切顺利。但这种宽泛的定义并不能解决与该概念相关的模糊性。元话语是一个难以界定的概念,这一点在文献中显而易见,许多讨论都缺乏精确性。这种缺乏系统性的部分原因是口语和书面语篇特征的异质性,这些特征可以指示元话语所指的语境维度:发送者、接收者或信息的组织方式。但同样严重的问题在于如何定义元话语与其他术语之间的关系。例如,费尔克劳夫(Fairclough,1992)将元话语视为一种“显性互文性”,在这种互文性中,作者与……互动。他/她自己的文本。另一方面,盖斯勒(Geisler,1994)同时提及元话语和“修辞过程”,并将它们与她所谓的“领域内容”进行对比。术语的泛滥无益,因为它阻碍了我们发现重要的联系,也使得研究之间难以相互借鉴和批判。这类问题很大程度上源于试图为元话语划定一个独立于话语命题成分的关注领域。
So far so good. But the fuzziness associated with the concept isn’t solved by broad definitions of this kind. Metadiscourse is a difficult construct to pin down and this is evident in the literature with imprecision characterizing much of the discussion. This lack of systematicity is partly a result of the heterogeneity of the features of spoken and written discourse which can signal the dimensions of context that metadiscourse refers to: the sender, the receiver or the organization of the message. But an equally serious problem relates to defining what is meant by metadiscourse in relation to other terms. Fairclough (1992), for instance, sees metadiscourse as a kind of ‘manifest intertextuality’ where the writer interacts with his or her own text. Geisler (1994), on the other hand, refers to both metadiscourse and ‘rhetorical processes’, contrasting these with what she calls ‘domain content’. The proliferation of terms is unhelpful as it prevents us seeing important connections and makes it difficult for studies to build on and critique each other. Such problems largely result from trying to carve out a domain of focus for metadiscourse distinct from the propositional component of discourse.
2.2 命题意义和元话语意义
2.2 Propositional and metadiscourse meanings
元话语定义的共同之处在于,它关注的是命题意义之外的其他意义。这种区分出现在最早的相关讨论中(例如 Lautamatti,1978;Meyer,1975)。例如,Lautamatti 将元话语描述为“非主题性的语言材料”,它与话语主题的发展无关,但对于理解话语整体至关重要。这种区分也是 Williams(1981:226)定义的核心,他指出元话语是“任何不指向所讨论主题的内容”。
The common thread in definit ions of metadiscourse is that it concerns meanings other than propositional ones. This distinction occurs in the earliest discussions of the subject (e.g. Lautamatti, 1978; Meyer, 1975). Lautamatti, for instance, discusses metadiscourse as ‘non-topical linguistic material’ which is irrelevant to discourse topic development but key to understanding discourse as a whole. The distinction is also central to Williams’ (1981: 226) definition, which states that metadiscourse is ‘whatever does not refer to the subject matter being addressed’.
同样,Vande Kopple (1985) 将元话语定义为“不增加命题信息,但表明作者存在的语言材料”,而 Crismore (1983: 2) 则将其描述为“作者以显式或隐式的方式介入话语,其目的在于引导而非告知,向读者展示如何理解主要话语中所说和所指的内容,以及如何‘理解’作者”。Crismore等人 (1993) 在其颇具影响力的论文中再次使用了这一定义,该论文指出元话语是:
Similarly Vande Kopple (1985) defines metadiscourse as ‘the linguistic material which does not add propositional information but which signals the presence of an author’, and Crismore (1983: 2) refers to it as ‘the author’s intrusion into the discourse, either explicitly or non-explicitly, to direct rather than inform, showing readers how to understand what is said and meant in the primary discourse and how to “take” the author’. This definition re-appears in Crismore et al.’s (1993) influential paper which states that metadiscourse is:
文本(书面或口头)中的语言材料,并不为命题内容增添任何内容,而是为了帮助听者或读者组织、解释和评估所给信息。
Linguistic material in texts, written or spoken, which does not add anything to the propositional content but that is intended to help the listener or reader organize, interpret and evaluate the information given.
(Crismore等人, 1993:40)
(Crismore et al., 1993: 40)
“命题”一词的含义通常比较模糊,但一般用来指代关于外部现实的信息:所有它涉及文本之外的世界中的思想、行动者或事态。例如,Halliday(1994:70)指出,命题材料是可以被论证、肯定、否定、怀疑、坚持、限定、缓和、后悔等等的。因此,分析家们为了明确识别元话语而做出的区分,可以追溯到第一章讨论的交易-互动划分。但更令人不安的是,它也沿袭了早期理论家的观点,将命题材料视为“主要”话语,而将元话语视为辅助性的或“次要的”角色。交易功能再次被置于互动功能之上。因此,不仅交流被划分为不同的话语“类型”,而且还建立了一种不必要的等级制度,将一种“类型”置于另一种“类型”之上。这不仅保留了洛克式的实证主义理论(该理论优先考虑命题和信息),而且还将元话语降格为次要地位。
What is understood by ‘proposition’ is often left vague, but it is generally used to refer to information about external reality: all that which concerns thoughts, actors or states of affairs in the world outside the text. Halliday (1994: 70), for example, states that propositional material is something that can be argued about, affirmed, denied, doubted, insisted upon, qualified, tempered, regretted and so on. The distinction made by analysts to clearly identify metadiscourse therefore looks back to the transactional–interactional division discussed in Chapter 1. But additionally, and more disturbingly, it also follows earlier theorists in regarding propositional matter as the ‘primary’ discourse with metadiscourse performing a supportive or ‘secondary’ role. The transactional function is once more elevated above the interactional one. Thus not only is communication divided into ‘types’ of discourse, but an unnecessary hierarchy is also established which values one ‘type’ over another. This not only preserves the Lockean positivist theory, which privileges the propositional and informational, but by doing so also relegates metadiscourse to an inferior status.
然而,仔细观察就会发现,命题内容的概念并非总是能排除通常被认为是元话语的大部分内容。有时,一个陈述可以具有双重功能;例如,苏格拉底悖论“我在撒谎”同时表达了一个命题和对该命题的评述。究竟什么是“命题性”的问题长期以来一直困扰着形式语义学领域的哲学家,他们传统上运用可证伪性检验来识别命题,判断一个陈述对某种情况的描述是真还是假。但事实证明,这种检验方法作用甚微,因为命题和元话语都可以被视为真或假。例如,毛(1993:267)指出,“我假设”这句话似乎是一个元话语标记,它并没有为后面的话语添加任何命题信息。它只是提醒读者注意这个言语行为以及断言的状态。但如果假设的内容是公认的事实,那么它也可能不成立。因此,如果元话语可以被判断为真或假,那么这个检验方法就不能将其定性为“非命题性的”。
A closer look, however, reveals that the idea of propositional content does not always rule out much of what is typically considered as metadiscourse. Sometimes a statement can have a dual function; for example, the Socratic paradox ‘I am lying’ simultaneously expresses a proposition and a commentary on it. The question of what is actually ‘propositional’ has long preoccupied philosophers working in formal semantics, who have traditionally applied the test of falsifiability to identify propositions, determining whether a statement describes a state of affairs truly or falsely. But this test turns out to be of little use as both propositions and metadiscourse can be seen as either true or false. Mao (1993: 267), for example, points out that the words ‘I hypothesize’ seem to be a metadiscourse marker adding no propositional information to the rest of the utterance which follows. It simply calls the reader’s attention to the speech act and the status of the assertion. But if what is hypothesized is a well acknowledged fact, then this too can be untrue. So if metadiscourse can be judged as true or false, then this test does not allow us to characterize it as being ‘non-propositional’.
Beauvais (1989) 提出了一个有趣的尝试来保留命题/元话语之间的区别,他将元话语描述为明确的标记,帮助读者识别……作者的论证需要被理解。博韦借鉴奥斯汀(1962)的言语行为理论指出,命题的理解方式与命题本身是有区别的。言语行为哲学家约翰·塞尔这样解释道:
One interesting attempt to preserve the proposition/metadiscourse distinction is made by Beauvais (1989) who characterizes metadiscourse as explicit markers which help readers to identify how a writer’s arguments are to be understood. Drawing on Austin’s (1962) theory of speech acts, Beauvais points out that there is a difference between how a proposition is to be taken and the proposition itself. The speech act philosopher John Searle puts it like this:
陈述和断言都是行为,但命题并非行为。命题是在断言行为中被断言的内容,是在陈述行为中被陈述的内容。换句话说,断言是对某个命题真值的一种(非常特殊的)承诺。
Stating and asserting are acts, but propositions are not acts. A proposition is what is asserted in the act of asserting, what is stated in the act of stating. The same point in a different way: an assertion is a (very special kind of) commitment to the truth of a proposition.
(Searle,1969:30)
(Searle, 1969: 30)
因此,元话语的作用在于表明作者在呈现命题内容时的交际意图。博韦列举了多种实现这一目标的方式,并将元话语限定为诸如“我认为/相信/注意到”和“他/她/史密斯断言/相信/注意到”及其简化形式之类的言语行为谓词。例如,“我认为税制改革是必要的”,其中“我认为”是言语行为力的元话语标记,“税制改革是必要的”则是命题内容。然而,遗憾的是,这种显性的、明确的言语行为并不能涵盖大多数表达作者观点的语句,而且在许多情况下,例如被动句,读者根本无法确定说话者是谁,这使得元话语的识别变得困难。此外,这类谓词的作用往往不仅仅在于表明作者希望命题具有的效力:它们还确立了作者对该材料的立场以及对读者的态度。因此,这类陈述或断言信息的行为在传递信息方面具有重要意义,并且实际上代表了信息本身的“内容”——即话语的真正“主题”。因此,元话语既与断言的内容同等重要,又与之重叠。
The role of metadiscourse is therefore to signal the writer’s communicative intent in presenting propositional matter and Beauvais lists a number of ways this is done, limiting metadiscourse to illocutionary predicates such as ‘I argue/believe/have noted’ and ‘he/she/Smith asserts/believes/has noted’ and their reduced forms. Thus in the example ‘I believe that tax reform is necessary’, ‘I believe that’ is the metadiscourse marker of illocutionary force, and ‘tax reform is necessary’ is the propositional content. Unfortunately, however, such overt, explicit performatives do not cover most utterances expressing writer viewpoints, and in many cases, such as passive sentences, the reader is unable to recover who the actor is at all, making metadiscourse identification problematic. In addition, such predicates often do more than indicate the force that the writer intends the proposition to have: they also establish the writer’s stance to the material and attitude to the reader. Such acts which state or assert information can therefore carry significant weight in delivering a message and actually represent the ‘content’ of the message itself – what the utterance is actually ‘about’. Metadiscourse can therefore both be of equal importance to what is asserted and overlap with it.
元话语分类方案的不一致性进一步加剧了这种混乱。例如,克里斯莫尔(Crismore,1989;Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1990)在其分类中纳入了“指称性、信息性元话语”,这显然是指韩礼德的语言观念功能,或者说是作者表达其思想和经验的方式。这看起来很像“命题性元话语”。内容以另一种伪装被偷偷带了回来。因此,尽管克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思主张“主要”话语和“次要”话语之间要有明确的界限,但他们似乎没有注意到,他们同时承认命题功能是元话语的一部分,从而削弱了这种区分。
The picture is further clouded by inconsistencies in metadiscourse categorization schemes. Crismore (Crismore, 1989; Crismore and Farnsworth, 1990), for instance, includes ‘referential, informational metadiscourse’ in her classification, apparently referring to Halliday’s ideational function of language or the ways writers express their ideas and experiences. This looks very much like ‘propositional content’ smuggled back under a different guise. So while Crismore and Farnsworth argue for a clear separation between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ discourse, they seem not to notice that they undermine this distinction by simultaneously admitting the propositional function as part of metadiscourse.
2.3 “意义层次”
2.3 ‘Levels of meaning’
一些学者试图更清晰地区分命题话语和元话语。例如,威廉姆斯(1981)和狄龙(1981)谈到了不同的意义层面或层次,其中一个层面向读者提供关于某个主题的信息,而另一个层面则强调写作行为本身。范德·科普尔(1985和2002)也持类似观点,他最近的表述如下:
Some writers have sought to draw the distinction between propositional discourse and metadiscourse even more clearly. Williams (1981) and Dillon (1981), for instance, talk of different planes or levels of meaning, with one level supplying the reader with information about a topic, and the other calling attention to the act of writing. This is also Vande Kopple’s view (1985 and 2002), expressed most recently like this:
从某种层面来说,我们拓展了概念材料。而在元话语层面,我们并非拓展概念材料,而是帮助读者联系、组织、诠释、评估这些材料,并形成对这些材料的态度。
On one level we expand ideational material. On the levels of metadiscourse, we do not expand ideational material but help our readers connect, organise, interpret, evaluate, and develop attitudes towards that material.
(Vande Kopple,2002:93)
(Vande Kopple, 2002: 93)
然而,我们很难理解元话语如何构成不同的意义层次。区分文本的命题内容与其具体的表达方式固然可能,甚至可以说是司空见惯,因为即便我们采取最独特的阅读立场,也必然受到文本本身以及读者群体惯例的制约。但这并不意味着,我们可以从文本中省略元话语而不改变其意义(Hyland and Tse, 2004)。
It is difficult to see, however, how metadiscourse can constitute a different level of meaning. It is certainly possible, even commonplace, to distinguish the propositional content of a text from the particular way it is expressed, for even the most idiosyncratic reading positions we might adopt are constrained by the text and the conventions of a community of readers. But this does not imply that metadiscourse can be omitted from a text without changing its meaning (Hyland and Tse, 2004).
当然,内容可以以不同的方式进行改写、概括、释义和重新表述。事实上,学术文本经常经历这种转变,从最初的研究论文到科普读物、教科书、词典、项目申请书、摘要和本科生论文等新形式。例如,迈尔斯展示了《科学》杂志上的一篇论文是如何被改编成……由《科学美国人》的编辑们改写,以面向更广泛的非专业读者。这包括将如下句子(1)改为(2):
Content can, of course, be rewritten, summarized, paraphrased and reformulated in different ways and, indeed, academic texts often undergo transformations of this kind, from their original appearance in research articles to new forms in popularizations, textbooks, dictionaries, grant proposals, abstracts and undergraduate essays. Myers, for example, shows how a paper in the journal Science was rewritten by the editors of the Scientific American for a wider, non-specialist audience. This involved transforming sentences such as (1) below into (2):
(1)当将具有相似产卵地点的寄主植物的枝条放置在该区域时,H. hewitsoni雌性没有进行任何调查。
(1) When branches of the host plant having similar oviposition sites were placed in the area, no investigations were made by the H. hewitsoni females.
(2)我采集了一些长有新芽的皮氏紫菀藤蔓,并将它们放置在经常被雌性蜘蛛光顾的那片藤蔓丛中。然而,雌性蜘蛛并没有来探访我提供的潜在产卵地点。
(2) I collected lengths of P. pittieri vines with newly developed shoots and placed them in the patch of vines that was being regularly revisited. The females did not, however, investigate the potential egg-laying sites I had supplied.
(迈尔斯,1990:180)
(Myers, 1990: 180)
第二个版本更侧重于科学家的介入,而非其概念框架,并将材料呈现为叙述而非报告,但我们可以看出,摘录的内容“关于”的是同一件事。“内容”或主题保持不变,但意义却发生了显著变化。这是因为文本的意义并非仅仅是命题材料或文本的主题,而是一个完整的整体,是文本生产者和接收者之间互动过程的结果。在这个过程中,作者选择最能传达其材料、立场和态度的形式和表达方式。
The second version gives more emphasis to the intervention of the scientist, rather than his conceptual framework, and presents the material as a narrative instead of a report, but we can see that the extracts are ‘about’ the same thing. The ‘content’, or subject matter, remains the same but the meanings have changed considerably. This is because the meaning of a text is not just the propositional material or what the text could be said to be about. It is the complete package, the result of an interactive process between the producer and receiver of a text in which the writer chooses forms and expressions which will best convey his or her material, stance and attitudes.
这种互动维度主要通过元话语实现,以下两个摘录或许能更清晰地展现这一点。每个样本约170字,内容相同:格赖斯的合作原则。第一个样本(3)是格赖斯为学术界人士撰写的原始版本。第二个样本(4)改编自网络上一个颇为奇特的网站“盛装舞步中的禅意”,其目标读者是马术爱好者而非哲学家。元话语标记已用下划线标出。
This interactional dimension is principally achieved through metadiscourse and is perhaps clearer in the two extracts below. Each sample is around 170 words and deals with the same ‘content’: Grice’s Cooperative Principle. The first (3) is Grice’s original formulation written for an academic audience. The second (4) is a reformulation from one of the web’s more bizarre sites, Zen in the Art of Dressage, and written for equestrians rather than philosophers. The metadiscourse markers are underlined.
(3) 我们的谈话交流通常并非由一系列互不相干的言论构成,如果真是如此,那就不合情理了。它们至少在某种程度上具有合作的特征;而且每个参与者都或多或少地从中认识到共同的目标或一系列目标。至少需要一个双方都认可的方向。这个目的或方向可能从一开始就确定(例如,通过最初提出的讨论问题),也可能在交流过程中逐渐形成;它可能相当明确,也可能非常模糊,以至于给参与者留下很大的自由发挥空间(就像在闲聊中一样)。但在每个阶段,一些可能的对话举动都会因为不符合对话规范而被排除。因此,我们可以制定一个粗略的通用原则,在其他条件相同的情况下,参与者应遵守该原则,即:在对话发生的阶段,根据你所参与的对话交流的既定目的或方向,做出必要的发言。我们可以将此称为合作原则。
(3) Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each part icipant recognises in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. The purpose or direction may be fixed from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for discussion), or it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite, or it may be so indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the participants (as in a casual conversation). But at each stage, some possible conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected, other things being equal, to observe, namely; make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative Principle.
(格赖斯,1975)
(Grice, 1975)
(4) 基本假设是,任何话语,无论是书面还是口头,都是一种共同努力。说话者和听话者都必须遵循一定的语用、句法和语义规则才能有效沟通。他们必须合作。格赖斯的合作原则包含几条准则,乍一看似乎非常简单、直接且符合常识。令我惊讶的是,当你分析口语或书面文本时,实际上可以在语言中观察到这些原则在高度技术层面的运作。你可以在任何语言的任何体裁的任何文本中找到它们。继续阅读,你可能会认为格赖斯的准则过于理想化,很少有说话者真正遵循它们。当误解发生时(现实生活中的人类语言和非语言交流充满了误解),你可以证明,这些误解通常是由于违反了一条或多条准则造成的。在马术界,它们是衡量骑手在马鞍上(以及在地面上)能力的标准。
(4) The basic assumption is that any discourse, whether written or spoken, is a joint effort. Both the speaker and the addressee have to follow certain pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic rules in order to communicate effectively. They have to co-operate. Grice’s Co-operative Principle consists of several maxims that appear very simple, straightforward, and common-sensical at first sight. What took me by surprise is that you can actually observe these principles at work on a highly technical level in language when you analyse spoken or written texts. You can find them in any text of any genre in any language. When you read on, you will think that Grice’s maxims are terribly idealistic , that few speakers really follow them. When misunderstandings (and real life human linguistic and non-linguistic communication is full of misunderstandings) occur, you can demonstrate that they are generally due to a violation of one or more of the maxims. In the equestrian world, they are a criterion for the rider’s competence in the saddle (as well as on the ground).
(Ritter, T.,
http://www.classicaldressage.com/zen/articles/a_2.html)
(Ritter, T.,
http://www.classicaldressage.com/zen/articles/a_2.html)
撇开里特似乎误解了格赖斯这一点不谈,值得注意的是,两篇文本中元话语的类型和分布揭示了它们截然不同的接受语境。在第一篇文本中,我们发现了谨慎的限定和例外,这些限定和例外是……格赖斯的论述严谨而富有哲学意味,大量元话语用于限定命题(例如,“在某种程度上”、“在某种程度上”、“在其他条件相同的情况下”等),并阐释或解释某些概念(例如, “即”)。他还试图通过使用一般的人称代词(例如, “我们”、“一”、“我们”)来吸引读者,强调其讨论的相关性及其与读者和作者共同经验的联系。相比之下,第二段摘录的语气则更加个人化,其中大量元话语标记直接指代作者和读者,使用“我”和“你”而非格赖斯更为概括的参与者。里特也对读者“会怎么想”做出了假设,并明确表达了态度(例如,“让我感到惊讶的是什么”),同时还引导读者对他的陈述进行评论,这些括号中的旁白旨在让读者积极参与到讨论中来。
Aside from the fact that Ritter seems to have misunderstood Grice, it is important to note that the type and distribution of metadiscourse in the two texts reveals their very different contexts of reception. In the first we find the careful qualifications and exceptions characteristic of philosophical precision, with much of the metadiscourse functioning to hedge propositions (to some degree, to some extent, other things being equal, etc.) and explicate or gloss ideas (e.g., namely). Grice also endeavours to engage his readers by using general personal pronouns (our, one, we) to stress the relevance of his discussion and its connection to the common experience of both readers and writer. The second extract, in contrast, is altogether more personal in tenor, with numerous metadiscoursal markers referring directly to the writer and the reader with me and you instead of Grice’s more generalized participants. Ritter also makes assumptions about what readers ‘will think’ and proffers explicit statements of attitude (What took me by surprise) as well as turning to readers to offer a commentary on his statements, asides in parentheses which seek to engage the readers as active participants in the discourse.
这里要指出的是,Vande Kopple等人认为元话语是一个独立的“意义层次”,这种说法是错误的。文本是交际行为,而非命题的罗列。文本的意义取决于其组成要素(包括命题和元话语)的整合,而这些要素并非彼此独立运作。元话语是任何文本的必要组成部分,它影响着文本的理解和读者行为;它并非一套独立且可分离的文体手段,可以随意添加或省略而不影响文本的呈现和阅读方式。这两个文本表明,尽管重述文本的内容可能明显相似,但由于其写作对象、目的和受众不同,其意义也会有所不同,这在很大程度上要归因于其中包含的元话语。因此,虽然区分命题和元话语是探索学术写作中元话语的起点,但我们仍然需要一种方法来区分这两个概念的实际应用。
The point to be made here is that Vande Kopple and others are simply wrong to state that metadiscourse is a separate ‘level of meaning’. Texts are communicative acts, not lists of propositions. The meaning of a text depends on the integration of its component elements, both propositional and metadiscoursal, and these do not work independently of each other. Metadiscourse is an essential part of any text and contributes to the ways it is understood and acted upon; it is not a separate and separable set of stylistic devices that can either be included or not without affecting how a text is presented and read. These two texts indicate that while a re-textualization may have recognizably similar content, the fact it is written for a different genre, purpose and audience means it will have different meanings, not least because of the metadiscourse it contains. So while a proposition–metadiscourse distinction is required as a starting point for exploring metadiscourse in academic writing, we still need a means of distinguishing actual instances of the two concepts.
总之,意义并非等同于“内容”,而是取决于文本的所有组成部分。命题性要素和元话语要素通常同时出现,一般在同一句子中,因此,一段话语同时具备这两种功能并不奇怪。这种整合十分常见,每个要素都表达着自身的“内容”:一个关注世界,另一个则关注文本及其接受。
In sum, meaning is not synonymous with ‘content’ but dependent on all the components of a text. Both propositional and metadiscoursal elements occur together, generally in the same sentences, and we should not be surprised that a stretch of discourse may have both functions. Such integration is common, with each element expressing it own ‘content’: one concerned with the world and the other with the text and its reception.
2.4 功能分析
2.4 Functional analyses
元话语文献中的另一个关键问题,也是实证研究中经常引起混淆的根源,是元话语究竟是句法范畴还是功能范畴,一些分析家甚至同时采用这两种方法(例如 Crismore等人, 1993)。然而,大多数作者都采用了功能方法,并试图根据语言标记或元话语标记在文本中所发挥的功能对其进行分类(例如 Lautamatti,1978;Meyer,1975;Williams,1981)。
Another key issue in the metadiscourse literature, and often a source of confusion in empirical studies, concerns whether metadiscourse is a syntactic or functional category, with some analysts even adopting both approaches simultaneously (e.g. Crismore et al., 1993). Most writers, however, have adopted a functional approach and sought to classify the linguistic tokens, or metadiscourse markers, according to the functions they perform in a text (e.g. Lautamatti, 1978; Meyer, 1975; Williams, 1981).
在应用语言学中, “功能性”一词有多种含义,但在元话语研究中,它指的是语言如何为用户实现特定的交际目的。因此,它关注的是一段语言是否在陈述一个主张、引导读者采取行动或做出回应、阐述一个意义、提出一个问题等等。功能分析认为,对任何文本进行全面且语用学基础扎实的描述,都必须关注语言在其上下文语境中的运用,以及作者创作文本的整体目的。因此,重点在于语境中的意义,在于语言是如何被使用的,而不是词典对语言的解释。所以,在考虑某个词条是否属于元话语时,问题不是“这个词条的功能是什么?”,而是“这个词条在文本的这个位置起着什么作用?”
The term functional has a number of meanings in applied linguistics, but in metadiscourse studies it refers to how language works to achieve certain communicative purposes for users. It therefore concerns whether a stretch of language is asserting a claim, directing readers to an action or response, elaborating a meaning, posing a question and so on. Functional analyses recognize that a comprehensive and pragmatically grounded description of any text must involve attending to the use of language in relation to its surrounding co-text and the purpose of the writer in creating a text as a whole. The emphasis is therefore on meanings in context, how language is used, not what a dictionary says about it. So, when considering any item as a candidate for inclusion as metadiscourse, the question is not ‘what is the function of this item?’ but ‘what is this item doing here at this point in the text?’.
元话语是一个相对概念,因为文本项只有在与其他文本部分关联时才能发挥元话语的作用。因此,在一种修辞语境中可能是元话语的内容,在另一种语境中可能表达的是命题材料,分析者必须始终单独考察每个文本项以确定其功能。以下示例说明了文本项的潜在多功能性,并将在第三章中进行更详细的讨论。这里,(a) 中的斜体词发挥了元话语的作用,而在 (b) 中则没有:
Metadiscourse is a relative concept in that text items only function as metadiscourse in relation to another part of the text. So what might be metadiscourse in one rhetorical context may be expressing propositional material in another, and analysts must always examine each item individually to determine its function. The potential multifunctionality of items is illustrated in the examples below and will be taken up in more detail in Chapter 3. Here the italicized word in (a) below functions as metadiscourse, while in (b) it does not:
(5) (5) |
(一个) (a) |
我想先确定日期,然后再讨论场地。 I want to agree about the date, then we can talk about the venue. |
(b) (b) |
我等了一个小时,然后他告诉我火车已经开走了。 I was waiting an hour then he told me the train had already left. |
|
(6) (6) |
(一个) (a) |
他可能只是忘记去取了。 It’s possible that he just forgot to collect it. |
(b) (b) |
晴朗的日子里,可以看到斯诺登尼亚山脉的群峰。 It’s possible to see the peaks of Snowdonia on a clear day. |
|
(7) (7) |
(一个) (a) |
我觉得她疯了。她先是冲我大喊大叫,然后又把邮件撕碎了。 I think she is crazy. First she screamed at me. Second she tore up the mail. |
(b) (b) |
当我把消息告诉她时,她先是冲我大吼大叫,然后把邮件撕碎了。 When I told her the news, first she screamed at me. Second she tore up the mail. |
在 (5a) 中,说话者正在谈论如何他会组织他的讨论,用“then”来安排话语的进程,而(5b)则告诉我们事件是如何按时间顺序发生的。(6a)中的“possible”表示说话者的估计,提出了一种可能的解释,并将其标记为猜测而非事实;(6b)中,它表达了在适当条件下可能发生的情况,这种情况超出了说话者的控制范围,也不取决于他或她对可能性的评估。(7a)中,顺序标记被用来列举说话者的论点,通过人际互动来说服听者,某人的行为应该被视为疯狂。另一方面,(7b)中,它们被用来叙述事件在现实世界中是如何发生的,而不是提出论点。总之,没有简单的语言学标准可以明确地识别元话语,因为许多项目既可以是命题性的,也可以是元功能性的,这取决于它们在语境中的作用。
In (5a) the speaker is talking about how he will organize his discussion, using then to sequence the progress of the discourse while in (5b) then tells us how events followed in time. In (6a) possible is used to suggest the speaker’s estimation, proposing a likely explanation and marking this as a guess rather than a true state of affairs, and in (6b) it expresses a feasible occurrence given the right conditions, an occurrence beyond the speaker’s control and not dependant on his or her assessments of likelihood. In (7a), the sequence markers are being used to list the speaker’s arguments, working interpersonally to convince the hearer that someone’s behaviour should be seen as mad. In (7b), on the other hand, they are being used to recount how events unfolded in the world rather than present an argument. In sum, there can be no simple linguistic criteria for unambiguously identifying metadiscourse as many items can be either propositional or metafunctional depending on their role in context.
更重要的是,这种多功能性意味着元话语根本不能被视为一种纯粹的语言现象,而必须被视为一种修辞和语用现象。这是因为我们不能简单地将特定的语言特征解读为元话语,而必须识别说话者和作者在话语的特定阶段运用这些特征的策略。从功能角度来看,元话语是我们的一种行为,一种社会行为,人们通过这种行为,出于特定的修辞目的,就自身的话语展开论述。这些对于理解和识别元话语至关重要,我将在下一章中再次探讨这些问题。
More importantly, this multifunctionality means that metadiscourse cannot be regarded as a strictly linguistic phenomenon at all, but must be seen as a rhetorical and pragmatic one. This is because we cannot simply read off particular linguistic features as metadiscourse, but have to identify the strategies that speakers and writers are using in producing those features at particular points in their discourse. In looking at metadiscourse as functional we can see that metadiscourse is something that we do, a social act through which people carry on a discourse about their own discourse for particular rhetorical purposes. These are important issues for understanding and identifying metadiscourse and I will take them up again in the next chapter.
2.5 “文本”和“人际”功能
2.5 ‘Textual’ and ‘interpersonal’ functions
由于元话语分析采用功能主义方法解读文本,该领域的学者倾向于从系统功能语言学理论中寻求洞见和理论支撑。在系统功能语言学(SFL)中,语言被视为围绕并同时实现三大目的或“元功能”(例如,Halliday,1994;Halliday 和 Matthiessen,1999)。这三大目的是:
Because metadiscourse analysis involves taking a functional approach to texts, writers in this area have tended to look to the Systemic Functional theory of language for insights and theoretical support. Within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), language is seen as being organized around, and simultaneously realizing, three broad purposes or ‘metafunctions’ (e.g. Halliday, 1994; Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999). These are:
• 观念功能:运用语言来表达经验和观念。这大致对应于前面讨论过的“命题内容”的概念,涉及我们对世界的感知和我们自身的意识。
• The Ideational function: the use of language to represent experience and ideas. This roughly corresponds to the notion of ‘propositional content’ discussed earlier and concerns perceptions of the world and our own consciousness.
• 人际功能:使用语言来编码互动,使我们能够与他人互动,扮演角色,表达和理解评价和感受。
• The Interpersonal function: the use of language to encode interaction, allowing us to engage with others, to take on roles and to express and understand evaluations and feelings.
• 文本功能:运用语言组织文本本身,将所说的话与世界和读者联系起来。
• The Textual function: the use of language to organize the text itself, coherently relating what is said to the world and to readers.
在霍利迪看来,这些元功能并非独立运作,而是在每一次话语中同时表达。文本的意义在于这三种功能的整合,而每一种功能都与其他功能相互关联,彼此关联才能被理解。
For Halliday these metafunctions do not operate independently and discretely but are expressed simultaneously in every utterance. The meaning of a text lies in the integration of all three functions, each of which is understood in relation to the others.
许多元话语分析家都借鉴了韩礼德的元功能理论来编码他们的数据(例如 Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1990;Crismore等人, 1993;Hyland,1998b,2000;Vande Kopple,1985)。为此,他们区分了元话语项目和命题内容,然后将前者归类为通过组织连贯的话语来履行文本功能,或者通过传达作者对文本的态度来履行人际功能。
Many metadiscourse analysts have drawn on Halliday’s metafunctions to code their data (e.g. Crismore and Farnsworth, 1990; Crismore et al., 1993; Hyland, 1998b, 2000; Vande Kopple, 1985). To do this they have distinguished metadiscourse items from propositional matter, and then categorized the former as either performing a textual function by organizing a coherent discourse, or performing an interpersonal function by conveying the writer’s attitudes to the text.
因此,Vande Kopple(1985:87)认为,文本元话语“展现了我们如何将各个命题联系起来,使它们构成一个连贯的文本,以及这些命题的各个元素如何与其他文本元素结合产生意义”。Lyons(1977:5)将其称为文本反思性,或“自然语言具有“指称或描述自身”的能力,这强调了文本的某些部分可以起到组织话语和帮助理解信息的作用,而不是指称世界本身。另一方面,人际元话语“可以帮助我们表达个性,表达我们对文本命题内容的反应,并描述我们希望与读者就这些内容进行的互动”。
Thus, Vande Kopple (1985: 87) believes that textual metadis-course ‘shows how we link and relate individual propositions so that they form a cohesive and coherent text and how individual elements of those propositions make sense in conjunction with other elements of the text’. Lyons (1977: 5) refers to this as text reflexivity, or ‘the capacity of natural language to refer to or describe itself’, calling attention to the idea that parts of a text can function to organize the discourse and help make the message comprehensible rather than refer to the world. Interpersonal metadiscourse, on the other hand, ‘can help us express our personalities and our reactions to the propositional content of our texts and characterize the interaction we would like to have with our readers about that content’.
尽管霍利迪的术语赋予了元话语概念一定的理论可信度,但这一概念在他的思想中却并无实际作用。系统功能语言学中与元话语最接近的语言范畴是连接关系(将文本元素连接在一起)和情态(处理确定程度)。对于霍利迪以及系统语言学传统的学者而言,文本功能主要通过代词、指称词等衔接手段以及作者选择将信息置于句首或句尾以突出其“已知”或“新”属性来实现。这种主题选择很好地体现了文本手段如何同时表达其他功能:它们不仅推动文本发展,也体现了作者认为的关键要素。主题有助于指明作者的出发点,以及他们选择用来呈现信息的“框架”。因此,这也代表了他们认为突出特定思想或人际信息的最佳方式,以反映他们的意图以及他们对读者理解信息的需求的评估。
But while Halliday’s terminology lends a certain theoretical respectability to the idea of metadiscourse, the concept plays no part in his thinking. The linguistic categories in SFL which most closely correspond to metadiscourse are conjunctive relations, which link text elements together, and modality, which deals with degrees of certainty. For Halliday, and those working in a systemic linguistics tradition, the textual function is principally realized by cohesive devices such as pronouns, referring terms, etc. and by the choices a writer makes in giving prominence to information as ‘given’ or ‘new’ by locating it at either the beginning or the end of the clause. Such choices of theme are a good example of how textual devices simultaneously express other functions as they not only provide for the development of a text, but also for what the writer sees as key elements. The theme helps to signpost what writers have in mind as a starting point, what ‘frame’ they have chosen to present their message. It therefore also represents what they see as the best way of highlighting particular ideational or interpersonal information to reflect their intentions and their assessments of reader needs in comprehending the message.
换言之,尽管元话语理论家倾向于将文本的文本性、人际性和命题性(观念性)要素视为彼此分离的独立元素,但霍利迪提醒我们,必须以更整体的视角来看待文本。话语是一个过程,在这个过程中,作者在写作的同时,也在创造命题内容、人际互动和文本的流畅性。但在这个过程中,文本的创造是创造人际意义和观念意义的手段,文本特征本身不能被视为目的。如果元话语是作者与读者互动并创造令人信服且连贯的文本的方式,那么我们必须承认,它关乎文本中的互动。它表达了人际维度,以及互动和文本如何共同作用。资源被用来建立和维护与读者的关系。我将在下一章更详细地阐述这一观点。
In other words, while metadiscourse theorists tend to see textual, interpersonal and propositional (ideational) elements of the texts as discrete and separable, Halliday reminds us that texts have to be seen more holistically. Discourse is a process in which writers are simultaneously creating propositional content, interpersonal engagement and the flow of text as they write. But in this process the creation of text is a means of creating both interpersonal and ideational meanings, and textual features cannot be seen as ends in themselves. If metadiscourse is the way writers engage their readers and create convincing and coherent text, then we have to acknowledge that it is about interaction in text. It expresses the interpersonal dimension and how both interactive and textual resources are used to create and maintain relations with readers. I will elaborate this view in more detail in the next chapter.
2.6 元话语信号
2.6 Metadiscourse signals
文献中对于元话语的定义也缺乏清晰的界定。我们已经指出,目前尚无简单的语言学标准可以用来识别元话语。事实上,元话语可以被视为一个开放的范畴,作者可以根据语境的需要添加新的内容。即使采用功能主义的视角,我们也可以通过多种方式在文本中展现自我和表达目的,而能够实现这些功能的语言表达方式也极其丰富。例如,附录中就列出了300种可能的表达方式。
There is also a lack of clarity in the literature concerning what counts as metadiscourse. We have already noted that there are no simple linguistic criteria for identifying metadiscourse. In fact, metadiscourse can be seen as an open category to which writers are able to add new items according to the needs of the context. Even adopting a functional approach, there are numerous ways that we are able to both reveal ourselves and our purposes in our texts, and there is a potentially huge range of linguistic items which might realize these functions. The Appendix, for instance, lists 300 potential expressions.
元话语研究侧重于显性文本手段,即文本中可以清晰识别的要素。虽然元话语涉及作者的存在,但只有文本各部分之间以及作者与文本之间那些可观察的关系才能被纳入分析。显性是元话语的重要标准,不仅在于识别的实际目的,更在于这种显性的存在本身就具有文本和修辞上的意义。它代表了作者或说话者试图创造某种特定的语用或话语效果的公开尝试。尽管显性程度可能存在差异,但这并不改变排除隐性作者存在进行分析的原则。
Metadiscourse studies focus on explicit textual devices, that is, items which can be clearly identified in the text. While metadiscourse concerns the presence of an author, only those relationships between parts of the text and between the author and the text which are observable can be included. Explicitness is an important criterion of metadiscourse not only for the practical purposes of identification, but also because it is this explicit presence which is textually and rhetorically interesting. It represents the writer’s or speaker’s overt attempt to create a particular pragmatic or discoursal effect, and while explicitness may be a matter of degree, it does not alter the principle of excluding implicit authorial presence from analyses.
对某些作者而言,这些异质性的实现方式可能包含非语言信号,例如伴随口语信息的副语言线索,如语调和重音,以及手势、面部表情和距离(例如,Argyle,1972)。在书面文本中,各种标点符号和印刷标记,如下划线、大写、引号和感叹号,可以突出文本的某些方面或作者对文本的态度(例如,Crismore等人, 1993:48)。图2.1展示了元话语的这些非语言方面。
For some writers these heterogeneous realizations can include non-verbal signals, e.g. the paralinguistic cues which accompany spoken messages, such as tone of voice and stress, as well as gesture, facial expression and proximity (e.g. Argyle, 1972). In written texts various forms of punctuation and typographical marks such as underlining, capitalization, scare quotes and exclamation marks can highlight aspects of a text or the writer’s attitudes to it (e.g. Crismore et al., 1993: 48). Figure 2.1 represents these non-verbal aspects of metadiscourse.
图 2.1 元 话语的潜在非语言表达。
FIGURE 2.1 Potential non-verbal expressions of metadiscourse.
以下(8)中的例子说明了作者如何利用标点符号来与某个词语的某些含义划清界限(a);表达他们的惊讶或愤怒(b);表明伴随的陈述(c)意在讽刺或开玩笑;(d)对可能不熟悉的词语或短语进行解释或说明;(e)转向读者,提供一些题外话或个人评论:
The examples in (8) below illustrate how writers can use punctuation to distance themselves from some connotations of a word (a); indicate their surprise or outrage (b); show that the accompanying statement is meant ironically or as a joke (c); offer a gloss or clarification of a possibly unfamiliar word or phrase (d); and turn to the reader to offer an aside or personal comment (e):
(8)(a)我承认“错误”一词对某些教师来说可能是一个不受欢迎的标签。
(8) (a) I admit that the term ‘error’ may be an undesirable label to some teachers.
(博士论文)
(PhD dissertation)
(b)给皇家自由医院的病人打电话,非高峰时段每分钟收费 39 便士,高峰时段每分钟收费 49 便士!
(b) To call a patient at the Royal Free costs 39p off-peak and 49p peak-time per minute!!
(致编辑的信)
(letter to the editor)
(c)如你所知,我总是能按时完成作业。
(c) As you know, I always meet the assignment deadlines .
(个人电子邮件)
(personal email)
(d)新设计的“Essence D'Asiatique”(亚洲风味)菜单以店内精心烹制的诱人美食为特色。
(d) The newly devised menu ‘Essence D’Asiatique’ (of Asian influence) features tantalizing cuisine expertly prepared on the premises.
(餐厅点评)
(restaurant review)
(e)在测试开始前几分钟,有人看到里德在广场上接收詹姆斯·安德森(还记得他吗?)的送货。
(e) Read could be sighted on the square minutes before the start of the test receiving deliveries from James Anderson (remember him?).
(体育新闻)
(sports journalism)
然而,更常见的情况是,分析侧重于显式表达。文本手法(9)。这些手法包括:单个词语,用于表明作者的立场或作者希望读者如何理解文本内容之间的联系(a);整个从句,用于引导读者采取某种行动或预告即将开始的文本(b);以及若干句子的序列(c):
More usually, however, analyses focus on explicit textual devices (9). These range from individual words which act to signal the writer’s stance or how he or she wants the reader to understand links between textual matter (a); whole clauses which can direct the reader to some action or preview the upcoming text (b); and sequences of several sentences (c):
(9)(a)由于频道种类繁多,表面上看起来选择更多,但这可能是一种错觉,因为频道在许多方面都会变得相似。
(9) (a) There is an outward show of greater choice because of the wide variety of channels, but this might be an illusion because the channels will come to resemble each other in many respects.
(GCE社会研究试卷)
(GCE Social Studies paper)
上诉人没有要求提供一般条款的副本,尽管7 月 1 日他们收到了 1969 年版本的副本。
The appellants did not request a copy of the general conditions, although on 1st July a copy of the 1969 version was sent to them.
(法院判决)
(court judgment)
(b) 你应该注意到,公式 1-3 的关系表明应力与载荷呈线性关系。
(b) You should note that the relations of Eq. 1–3 imply that stress is linearly related to load.
(物理教科书)
(Physics textbook)
本节包含有关笔记本电脑的重要安全信息。
In this section you will find essential safety information regarding your notebook.
(电脑手册)
(computer manual)
(c) 本文结构如下:第二章概述香港航空货运业;第三章回顾相关文献;第四章构建模型,衡量航空货运业对香港劳动力市场的乘数效应;第五章探讨该行业未来增长的驱动因素和制约因素;最后一章总结全文并提出建议。
(c) The organization of this paper will be as follows. Chapter 2 is a review of Hong Kong air cargo industry. Chapter 3 is a literature review. Chapter 4 is a model measuring the multiplier effects brought by the air cargo industry to the Hong Kong labour market. Chapter 5 concerns the drivers and constraints for future growth of this industry and the last Chapter offers conclusions and recommendations.
(博士论文)
(PhD dissertation)
元话语中的一个重要问题然而,值得注意的是,元话语的使用中总是存在一定程度的内部人士隐晦性。从冲浪者的“tubular”(太棒了)到外交官的“full and frank discussions”(全面坦诚的讨论),分析者会遇到用户共享的理解,这些理解表明了内部人士的身份,并使纯粹的文本分析难以奏效。群体成员通常能够轻易地理解晦涩术语的内涵意义,以及日常使用的社群表达中可能存在的编码指涉,而这些对分析者来说可能难以理解。这是因为文本参与者通过互文知识网络相互联系,这种联系源于他们对类似文本的经验以及对信息和态度表达方式的预期。换句话说,写作和阅读涉及将大量的程序性和内容性知识应用于文本,对话者必须假定(即使仅仅是为了简化处理过程),那些显著的、因而也是有意义的内容已经被充分编码并可以被理解。正如奈斯特兰德所观察到的:
An important issue in metadiscourse identification, however, is that there is invariably a certain amount of insider opacity in metadiscourse use. From the surfer’s ‘tubular’ to the diplomat’s ‘full and frank discussions’, the analyst is confronted with users’ shared understandings which signal insider status and defy purely textual analysis. Group members are often able to recover easily the connotative meanings of arcane terminology and the coded references of routinely used community expressions which may be impenetrable to the analyst. This is because text participants are linked by webs of intertextual knowledge as a result of their experience of similar texts and their expectations of how information and attitudes are likely to be expressed. In other words, writing and reading involve deploying a considerable amount of procedural and content knowledge to texts, and interlocutors have to suppose, even if only for the sake of economic processing, that what is salient, and so therefore what is meaningful, is adequately encoded and recoverable. As Nystrand observes:
写作的过程是根据作者合理假定的读者已知和预期来构思文本,而阅读的过程是根据读者对作者意图的假定来预测文本。更根本的是,两者都预设了对方的意义建构能力。因此,书面交流取决于作者和读者各自对对方行为的假定。
The process of writing is a matter of elaborating text in accord with what the writer can reasonably assume that the reader knows and expects, and the process of reading is a matter of predicting text in accord with what the reader assumes about the writer’s purpose. More fundamentally, each presupposes the sense-making capabilities of the other. As a result, written communication is predicated on what the writer/reader each assumes the other will do/has done.
(Nystrand,1989:75)
(Nystrand, 1989: 75)
不那么深奥,但同样晦涩难懂的是语言中那些传递元话语意义的特征,这些意义通常不被视为元话语。例如,隐喻可以帮助集中注意力(热带雨林是地球的肺),而典故则常被用来与读者建立联系(他寄来的巧克力实际上是一匹特洛伊木马)。对分析者而言,或许更棘手的情况是,作者选择用语法来编码元话语意义。例如,我们可以选择强调……的重要性。明确表达想法,如 (10a) 所示,或者使用主句和从句 (10b) 所示:
Less esoteric, yet often similarly opaque, are features of language which signal metadiscoursal meanings which are not usually regarded as metadiscourse. Thus metaphors can help focus attention (rainforests are the lungs of the earth) and allusion is often used to forge a common bond with readers (the chocolates he sent were actually a Trojan horse). Perhaps more problematic for the analyst are cases where the writer chooses to encode metadiscoursal meanings grammatically. We can, for example, opt to signal the importance of ideas explicitly as in (10a), or by using a main clause with a subordinate clause (10b):
(10)(a) 值得注意的是,我们的讨论并不是为了反映这些感受的强烈程度。
(10) (a) It is important to note that our discussion is not intended to reflect how strongly these feelings are held.
(研究文章)
(research article)
(b)我们的讨论并不是为了反映这些感受的强烈程度,因为这将在以后的定量研究中进行衡量。
(b) Our discussion is not intended to reflect how strongly these feelings are held, because this will be measured in a later quantitative study.
(发明的)
(invented)
当作者只使用主句而不使用从属句时,他们实际上是在暗中告诉读者,所提出的所有观点都同等重要;而从属句则建立了一种等级制度,并隐含地表明了作者对重要性的评价。
When writers use only main clauses without subordination they are covertly informing their readers that all the ideas presented have equal importance, while subordination establishes a hierarchy and implicitly signals the writer’s evaluation of significance.
最后,关于元话语的定义,还需考虑作者的情感表达或词汇评价。我们以各种各样的方式传达积极或消极的观点,几乎任何语言选择都能传达某种态度,表达我们的喜好、厌恶、赞同或反对。当我们以这种方式表达自己的情感状态或反应时,我们实际上是在邀请读者分享这些反应,或者至少让他们认为这些反应是合理的,从而与他们建立起人际联系。在最微妙的层面上,作者的观点仅通过词汇选择就能传达,因为形容词的选择就能传达细微的情感差别(例如,使用“节俭”而非“吝啬”,“直率”而非“坦率”,“单身”而非“老处女” )。但是,将此类内容纳入元话语范畴,会使其含义超出任何有用的描述性功能,从而削弱元话语的概念。因此,元话语研究倾向于区分评价性词汇(用于限定单个项目)和立场标记(为整个命题提供态度或评价框架)。修饰单个词汇的特征因此被排除在元话语之外,因为它们不与整个命题相关(例如 Crismore等人, 1993)。
A final consideration of what we should count as metadiscourse relates to the writer’s expression of affect, or lexical evaluation. We communicate positive or negative viewpoints in a whole range of ways, and it can be said that almost any linguistic choice conveys an attitude of some kind, expressing our likes and dislikes, our approval and disapproval. When we report our emotional states or reactions in this way we invite our readers to share those reactions, or at least to see them as valid, and so reach out to them interpersonally. At the most delicate level a writer’s viewpoint can be conveyed through lexical choice alone, as the selection of an adjective can convey subtle shades of affect (the use of frugal vs stingy, forthright vs blunt, or single vs spinster, for example). But to include such items as metadiscourse undermines the concept by widening it beyond any useful descriptive role. Metadiscourse studies therefore tend to distinguish between evaluative lexis, used to qualify individual items, and stance markers, which provide an attitudinal or evaluative frame for an entire proposition. Features which modify individual lexical words are therefore excluded as metadiscourse because they do not function in relation to an entire proposition (e.g. Crismore et al., 1993).
这些问题共同意味着,编码方案可能无法捕捉到所有人际特征或作者意图,任何元话语标记列表都只能是片面的。因此,元话语有助于揭示意义。文本及其使用者之间的关系固然重要,但永远无法对其进行全面描述。然而,它鼓励我们更深入地研究文本,以发现作者表达观点和与读者互动的方式。它也表明,我们应该超越文本本身,探索其运作机制,采用以文本为起点,但同时借鉴多种证据来源的方法,包括分析代表性文本语料库、访谈内部人士以及专家针对特定文本特征的自述报告。这种三角测量法有助于我们更深入地理解内部人士如何看待他们的读写实践,以及他们如何写作和回应这些文本特征(Hyland,2000)。
Together, these issues mean that it may not be possible to capture every interpersonal feature or writer intention in a coding scheme and that any list of metadiscourse markers can only ever be partial. Metadiscourse therefore helps to reveal meanings in the text and relationships between text users, but can never achieve a comprehensive description. It does, however, encourage us to look harder at texts to discover the ways that writers make their points and engage with their readers. It also suggests that we should go beyond texts to discover how they work, using methods which take texts as a starting point but which draw on multiple sources of evidence including the analysis of a corpus of representative texts, interviews with insider informants, and focused expert self-reports concentrating on particular text features. This kind of triangulation helps get us closer to understanding how insiders view their literacy practices and how they write and respond to these features (Hyland, 2000).
2.7 元话语的分类
2.7 Categorizations of metadiscourse
鉴于元话语标记所承载的意义范围广泛,人们提出了多种不同的分类方法。大多数分类体系都与Vande Kopple(1985)提出的分类体系密切相关,该体系将元话语标记分为七种类型,并进一步细分为文本类型和人际类型。这些分类总结在表2.1中。
Given the breadth of meanings realized by metadiscourse markers, there are a number of different ways which these features have been categorized. Most taxonomies are closely based on that proposed by Vande Kopple (1985), whose categorization consists of seven kinds of metadiscourse marker divided into textual and interpersonal types. These are summarized in Table 2.1.
表 2.1范德·科普尔的元话语分类系统
Table 2.1s Vande Kopple’s classification system for metadiscourse
许多学者都曾使用过这种分类方法(例如 Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1989,1990;Intaraprawat 和 Steffensen,1995;Cheng 和 Steffensen,1996),它本身也是对 Lautamatti(1978)分类法和 Williams(1981)简明风格指南的拓展。然而,由于类别模糊且功能重叠,这些分类方法在实践中难以应用。一个显而易见的问题是难以区分叙述者和归因者,尤其是在学术写作中,引用往往用于实现多种修辞功能。引文不仅可以提供命题依据(用 Vande Kopple 的术语来说就是有效性标记),还可以满足先例惯例(叙述者),并且还可以为研究提供叙事背景(Berkenkotter 和 Huckin,1995 年),或者建立互文框架,以表明知识的累积和线性发展(Hyland,2000 年)。
This classification has been used by numerous writers (e.g. Crismore and Farnsworth, 1989, 1990; Intaraprawat and Steffensen, 1995; Cheng and Steffensen, 1996) and is itself a development of Lautamatti’s (1978) taxonomy and Williams’ (1981) brief style guide treatment. The vagueness of the categories and the functional overlaps, however, mean they have proved difficult to apply in practice. One obvious problem is the difficulty of distinguishing narrators and attributors, particularly in academic writing where citation is used to perform a variety of rhetorical functions. Not only can citations provide propositional warrants (validity markers in Vande Kopple’s terms) and meet conventions of precedence (narrators), but they might also be used to offer a narrative context for the research (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995) or establish an intertextual framework to suggest a cumulative and linear progression of knowledge (Hyland, 2000).
值得注意的是,这些功能并非孤立地执行,作者可能试图实现多个目的。在选择引文时,往往需要同时考虑多种功能。因此,分析者和读者都很难确定引文的具体功能意图。当我们试图区分言语行为和有效性标记的例子时,也会出现类似的问题,例如“我们认为”和“我证明”似乎都同时表明了程度。作者希望在陈述中投入的投入,以及话语在此时所进行的行为,都体现了这一点。此外,评论的范畴究竟包含哪些内容,以及它与被贴上“态度标记”标签的内容有何区别,也并不显而易见。这些问题并非通过对语境的细致分析就能消除歧义,而是分类体系本身固有的缺陷。因此,范德·科普尔的分类体系已被多位学者(例如纳什,1992;徐,2001)以及范德·科普尔本人(2002)不断完善和修正。范德·科普尔本人将有效性标记重新命名为认识论标记,并将叙述者纳入该范畴,强调了他们为陈述提供证据支持的功能。
It is worth noting that these functions are not performed in isolation, and the writer may be trying to achieve several purposes at once in selecting a citation. As a result, it is not entirely clear how far either the analyst or the reader can determine which function may be intended. Similar problems occur when we try to disentangle examples of illocution and validity markers where cases such as ‘we suggest that’ and ‘I demonstrate that’ seem to indicate both the degree of commitment that the writer wishes to invest in a statement and simultaneously the act that the discourse is performing at that point. Nor is it obvious what the category of commentary might include or how this is likely to differ from that which might be labelled as attitude markers. These are not problems that can be disambiguated by close analysis of context, but are inherent shortcomings of the categorization scheme itself. Consequently, Vande Kopple’s taxonomy has been refined and amended by various writers (e.g. Nash, 1992; Xu, 2001) and, recently, by Vande Kopple (2002) himself who has re-labelled validity markers as epistemology markers and included narrators in that category, highlighting their function of providing evidential support to statements.
最实质性的修订来自 Crismore等人(1993) 和 Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b),他们对 Vande Kopple 的分类进行了合并、拆分和重组。Crismore等人的分类概要见表 2.2。可以看出,Crismore 删除了叙述者,将一些子功能转移到文本标记这一新类别,并将代码注释和言语行为标记移至解释性标记这一新类别。这两个新类别旨在解释元话语的文本作用,其中文本标记指的是有助于组织话语的特征,而解释性标记则“帮助读者解释并更好地理解作者的意义和写作策略”(Crismore等人, 1993:47)。
The most substantial revisions have been those of Crismore et al. (1993) and Hyland (1998b, 1998c, 1999b) who have collapsed, separated and reorganized Vande Kopple’s categories. A summary of Crismore et al.’s taxonomy is shown in Table 2.2. As can be seen, Crismore drops narrators, shifts some sub-functions to a new category of textual markers, and moves code glosses and illocution markers into another new category of interpretive markers. These two new categories are supposed to account for the textual role of metadis-course, with textual markers referring to features which help organize the discourse and interpretive markers which function to ‘help readers interpret and better understand the writer’s meaning and writing strategies’ (Crismore et al., 1993: 47).
表 2.2 Crismore 等人对元话语的分类(1993:47-54)
Table 2.2 Crismore et al.’s categorization of metadiscourse (1993: 47–54)
尽管克里斯莫尔等人试图对元话语的各种功能进行分类,这比范德·科普尔的方法有所改进,但问题依然存在。例如,文本元话语为何被划分为文本标记和解释性标记,这一点并不明确。组织特征显然有助于文本的连贯性,从而帮助读者理解文本。此外,这些类别内部也存在混淆;例如,将提及文本前文内容的提示归类为文本标记,而将展望未来的公告归类为解释性标记。
While Crismore et al.’s attempts to impose order on the various functions of metadiscourse are an improvement on Vande Kopple’s approach, problems remain. It is not clear, for instance, why textual metadiscourse has been divided into textual and interpretive markers. Organizational features obviously contribute to the coherence of the text and thereby assist the reader in interpreting it. There is also confusion within these categories; for example, the decision to include reminders, which refer to matter earlier in the text, as textual markers while announcements, which look forward, are seen as interpretive.
逻辑连接词这一类别也并非完全透明。虽然克里斯莫尔等人接受范德·科普尔的观点,即这些词项表明文本不同部分之间的联系,但他们仍然从句法而非功能的角度来识别这些词项,并且只包括那些“连接两个主句”。因此,他们将并列连词(例如and和but)和连接副词(例如 therefore 和 in addition)视为元话语,但从属连词(例如because和which)则不计入。他们的理由是从属连词对语法性至关重要,而“作者可以省略and或therefore,仍然能构成一个结构良好的独立分句”(同上:49)。克里斯莫尔似乎认为,只有当某些词项是出于选择而非句法必然性时,它们才能发挥元功能作用。因此,在这种体系下,这些特征既可以发挥元话语功能,也可以发挥句法功能。但是,表达一个话语的方式总是不止一种,每一种实现方式都可以被视为作者有意识的选择。由于作者干预是元话语的基石,因此,这种限制的适用原因尚不明确。同样的语法选择显然可以发挥元话语作用,并构成结构良好的句子。
Nor is the class of logical connectives entirely transparent. While Crismore et al. accept Vande Kopple’s view that these items show how different parts of the text are connected, they nevertheless identify them syntactically rather than functionally, i ncluding only those ‘joining two main clauses’. Thus they count coordinating conjunctions (such as and and but) and conjunctive adverbs (therefore, in addition) as metadiscourse, but not subordinating conjunctions (like because and which). Their reason for this is that subordinators are essential to grammaticality, whereas ‘writers can omit an and or therefore and still have a well-formed independent clause’ (ibid.: 49). Crismore seems to be suggesting that items can only perform metafunctional roles if they are the product of choice rather than syntactic necessity. Features can therefore perform either a metadiscoursal or a syntactic function in this scheme. But there is always more than one way of expressing an utterance, and every realization can be seen as the expression of a conscious writer choice. As writer intervention is a cornerstone of metadiscourse, it is unclear quite why this constraint is applied. The same grammatical choices can clearly work metadiscoursally and create well-formed sentences.
最后,尽管 Crismore等人将元话语定义为不为命题内容增添任何内容的材料,尽管文本中通常包含连接不同概念的元素,例如逻辑连接词,但他们仍然将其视为元话语。然而,显然,用于连接命题要素的连接词完全可以被视为这些命题的一部分。例如,在以下摘自社会学教科书的例子中,正是工会的出现及其相对权力这两个要素的结合,才是笔者关注的关键事实:
Finally, although Crismore et al. define metadiscourse as material which does not add anything to the propositional content of the text, they nevertheless see items which often connect ideas, such as logical connectives, as metadiscourse. It seems clear, however, that conjunctions operating to link elements of proposition might justifiably be seen as part of those propositions. In the following example from a Sociology textbook, for example, it is the two elements in combination, both the emergence of trade unions and their relative power, which is the key fact for this writer:
新的干预主义国家从社会共识中获得了权威和合法性,这种共识是围绕着一个制衡力量集团(工会和劳工运动)的壮大及其相对于工业资本所有者的力量而形成的。
The new interventionist state drew its authority and legitimacy from a societal consensus which had been forged around the growth of a countervailing power bloc (the trade union and labour movement) and its strength relative to that of the owners of industrial capital.
此处“and”的包含对于该命题至关重要,虽然克里斯莫尔等人的定义要求我们这样编码它,但很难看出它在何种意义上发挥着元话语的作用。
The inclusion of and here is crucial to the proposition and it is difficult to see the sense in which it is functioning as metadiscourse, although this is how Crismore et al.’s definition would have us code it.
因此,尽管试图将元话语划定在命题内容之外是合理的,但使用句法标准来划定界限只会使问题更加复杂。重要的不是删除某个成分后句子是否会变得不合语法,而是该成分在句子中发挥的功能。我将在后文论证,我们需要记住,连接词以及其他特征可以起到连接论述步骤的作用,从而帮助将话语组织成一个论证;也可以连接文本之外的世界活动,从而将经验呈现为一系列事件(Martin,1992)。正是这种区分,而非某种虚假的作者选择观念,才有助于元话语概念的理论和分析连贯性。
So although it is reasonable to try and establish boundaries for metadiscourse as lying outside of propositional matter, using syntactic criteria to do this simply muddies the waters. What is important is not whether a sentence becomes ungrammatical if an item is removed, but the function that item is performing in the sentence. I will argue later that we need to keep in mind that connective items, as well as other features, can function to either connect steps in an exposition, and so help to organize the discourse as an argument, or connect activities in the world outside the text, and so represent experiences as a series of events (Martin, 1992). It is this distinction, rather than some spurious notion of writer choice, which contributes to the theoretical and analytical coherence of the concept of metadiscourse.
2.8 总结与结论
2.8 Summary and conclusions
尽管人们普遍认同元话语指的是超越主题内容、旨在表明作者存在的材料,但围绕这一术语仍存在一定程度的混淆和定义上的不精确性。分析人士似乎过度依赖于命题话语和元话语之间模糊不清的区分。这个问题导致一些人对“主要”和“次要”话语,甚至是文本中不同的“意义层次”做出了错误的断言。我还简要回顾了文献中提出的分类方案,以及分析者在进行选择时所做的假设。
While there is broad agreement that metadiscourse refers to material which goes beyond the subject matter to signal the presence of the author, there is a certain amount of confusion surrounding the term and imprecision in defining it. Analysts seem to be over-reliant on an uncertain distinction between propositional and metadiscourse matter and some have been led into making spurious assertions about ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ discourses or even different ‘levels of meaning’ in texts. I have also briefly reviewed the categorization schemes that have been proposed in the literature and the assumptions that analysts have made in making their selections.
讨论表明,尽管大多数分析家采用功能主义方法研究元话语,但分类有时会将功能标准与句法标准混淆,并误解韩礼德的语言三元论。这往往掩盖了语言特征可能具有多种功能,以及语言元素只有在与其他文本部分关联时才能发挥元话语作用的事实。此外,由于话语涉及语言使用者作为社会群体成员之间的互动,元话语也存在一定程度的晦涩性。能够发挥元话语作用的元素通常依赖于这些群体的共同理解和惯例,因此分析家并非总能理解它们。
The discussion has suggested that while most analysts adopt a functional approach to metadiscourse, categorizations sometimes confuse functional with syntactic criteria and misrepresent Halliday’s tripartite view of language. This tends to obscure the fact that language features have potentially multifunctional roles and that items only function as metadiscourse in relation to other parts of the text. It is also apparent that there is also a degree of opacity in metadiscourse because of the fact that discourse involves interactions between language users communicating as members of social groups. Items which can function metadiscoursally often draw on the shared understandings and conventions of these groups and so are not always accessible to the analyst.
然而,这些问题并非不可克服。通过采用清晰的功能性方法并保持分类的一致性,元话语为描述话语以及描绘语言与其使用的社会语境之间的关系提供了一种强有力的分析工具。显然,元话语研究必须从文本的功能分类和分析入手。此外,重要的是要将元话语视为语言使用整体目的的核心,而不仅仅是其附属品,它实现的功能既与思想或经验的传递并行,又为其提供支持。我将在下一章探讨这些问题。
These are not insurmountable problems, however. By adopting a clear functional approach and being consistent in our categorizations, metadiscourse offers a powerful analytical tool for describing discourse and mapping the ways that language is related to the social contexts in which it is used. Clearly, metadiscourse studies must begin with functional classifications and analyses of texts. It is, moreover, important to see metadiscourse as central to the overall purpose of language use, rather than merely an adjunct to it, realizing functions which both parallel and support the transmission of ideas or experiences. It is these issues I turn to in the next chapter.
前一章指出,“元话语”一词的定义相互矛盾且含义模糊,导致人们对分析中应包含哪些特征以及如何对这些特征进行分类感到困惑。更重要的是,这种模糊性严重削弱了人们对该概念本身的信心,并阻碍了将其作为描述话语的一种手段进行一致的操作化尝试。本章我提出了一个理论上更为稳健、分析上更为可靠的元话语模型,该模型基于若干核心原则,并为识别和编码特征提供了清晰的标准。其关键假设是,修辞特征只有在其出现的语境中才能被理解并具有意义,因此,元话语必须作为社群实践、价值观和理念的一部分进行分析。这种分析方法能够揭示并有助于解释特定用户群体中话语结构的特定原因。
The previous chapter has suggested that the conflicting definitions and ambiguity surrounding the term ‘metadiscourse’ has led to uncertainty about what features to include in analyses and how to categorize these. More significantly, this lack of clarity has seriously undermined confidence in the concept itself and frustrated attempts to operationalize it consistently as a means of describing discourse. In this chapter I propose a more theoretically robust and analytically reliable model of metadiscourse, based on a number of core principles and offering clear criteria for identifying and coding features. The key assumption here is that rhetorical features can be understood and seen as meaningful only in the contexts where they occur, and as a result metadiscourse must be analysed as part of a community’s practices, values and ideals. This kind of analysis can then reveal, and help explain, why discourses are structured in a particular way among a particular group of users.
本章阐述了认真对待这种元话语观点的意义所在。首先,我将简要讨论元话语的三个基本原则,然后提出一个功能框架,将元话语定义为一种概念化人际关系的手段。
This chapter spells out what it means to take this view of metadiscourse seriously. I begin by briefly discussing three basic principles of metadiscourse, and then go on to suggest a functional framework which characterizes metadiscourse as a means of conceptualizing interpersonal relations.
3.1 元话语的关键原则
3.1 Key principles of metadiscourse
首先要明确定义:
The first place to start is with a clear definition:
元话语是指用于在文本中协商互动意义的自我反思表达方式的总称,它有助于……作者(或演讲者)表达观点并与特定社群的读者互动。
Metadiscourse is the cover term for the self-reflective expressions used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer (or speaker) to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community.
虽然这个定义与一些早期关于元话语的研究相关,但它显然也与这些研究存在一些重要的区别,并与其他强调人际互动的语言使用观点有所重叠,例如评价、立场和参与。本质上,它将元话语视为一个由一系列开放式语言项实现的意义系统。这些语言项也可以发挥非元话语的作用,因此只有在实际应用的情况下才能被识别。支撑这一元话语概念的是一种功能导向的视角,该视角认为作者与读者进行互动,并提出了元话语的三个关键原则(Hyland 和 Tse,2004)。这三个原则是:
While this definition relates to some of the earlier work on metadiscourse, it is also clear that it differs from it in important ways, overlapping with other views of language use which emphasize the interpersonal, such as evaluation, stance and engagement. Essentially it sees metadiscourse as a system of meanings realized by an open-ended set of language items. These items can also perform non-metadiscoursal roles and so are recognized only in actual instances of realization. Underpinning this conception of metadiscourse is a functionally oriented perspective, which sees writers as conducting interaction with their readers, and three key principles of metadiscourse (Hyland and Tse, 2004). These are:
1.元话语与话语的命题方面截然不同;
1. that metadiscourse is distinct from propositional aspects of discourse;
2.元话语指的是文本中体现作者与读者互动的方面;
2. that metadiscourse refers to aspects of the text that embody writer–reader interactions;
3.元话语仅指话语内部的关系。
3. that metadiscourse refers only to relations which are internal to the discourse.
元话语与话语的命题方面截然不同。
i. Metadiscourse is distinct from propositional aspects of discourse
我在2.2节中提到,元话语的定义区分了命题材料,或者说话语的“交际内容”,以及组织这些内容并传达作者信念和态度的材料。为了稍微简化这种区分,我们可以认为,作者有话要说,而他们选择表达的方式受到他们对特定受众接受程度的预期的影响。也就是说,文本的主要目的是被阅读,而作者对这种阅读的预期会对文本的构成产生反作用,影响文本的布局方式以及作者对文本的立场。我们可以将这两个维度视为同时发生的两个层面。语言使用方面,指的是两种主要类型的实体:世界上的事物和话语、命题和元话语中的事物。
I noted in 2.2 that definitions of metadiscourse draw a line between propositional material, or the ‘communicative content’ of discourse, on the one hand and material which organizes this content and conveys the writer’s beliefs and attitudes to it on the other. To oversimplify this distinction slightly, we might suggest that writers have something to say and the ways they choose to say it are influenced by their expectations of how it will be received by a particular audience. That is, the main purpose of a text is to be read, and the writer’s anticipation of this reading has a backwash effect on the composition of the text, influencing how it is set out and the position the writer takes towards it. We can see these two dimensions as two simultaneously enacted aspects of language in use, referring to two main types of entity: things in the world and things in the discourse, propositions and metadiscourse.
这种划分是理论构建和分析的重要起点,但由于“命题”的概念理论化不足且鲜有阐述,因此研究者尚未找到一种万无一失的方法来识别哪些是命题,哪些不是。例如,以下例 (1) 中的两个陈述,既可以被视为讨论世界上正在发生的事情(命题内容),也可以被视为在话语中对这类事情的描述(非命题内容):
This division is an essential starting point for both theory building and analysis, but because the idea of ‘proposition’ is under-theorized and rarely elaborated, it has not provided researchers with an infallible means of identifying what is propositional and what is not. The two statements in example (1) below, for instance, could be seen as discussing something going on in the world (propositional matter) or reports on such matters in the discourse (non-propositional material):
(1)我下面提出的分类方案不仅仅是对多样性的中立描述,而且本身就是一种理论。
(1) A taxonomic scheme such as the one I present below is not just a neutral description of diversity but a theory in itself.
(科学教科书)
(science textbook)
“政治正确”是一个老掉牙的词,现在除了《每日邮报》以外,很少有人再用了,而《每日邮报》还把它当作攻击左派的武器。
‘Political correctness’ is a tired old expression, not used much nowadays by anybody but the Daily Mail, which employs it as a weapon with which to castigate the left.
(报纸专栏)
(newspaper column)
第一句话中的“分类体系”可能是一个具体的例子,是文本本身提及和讨论的内容,也可能是指文本之外世界中所有此类体系的统称。同样,报纸专栏作家可能是在评估“政治正确”这一表达作为话语的一部分,也可能是在评估其在现实世界行为中的实际表现。第一位作者将该体系称为“如下所述”,并将“政治正确”用引号括起来,并以“一个老掉牙的表达”和“它”这样的指代词来指代,这表明这两个例子都应从话语内部进行解读。这些例子的意义在于,我们需要区分命题和内容,才能探索元话语,但我们也需要明确的原则来识别实践中的具体实例。
The ‘taxonomic scheme’ in the first utterance might be a specific example, something referred to and discussed in the text itself, or a reference to all such schemes existing in the world beyond the text. Similarly, the newspaper columnist might be evaluating the expression ‘political correctness’ as part of the discourse, or its actual manifestation in real-world behaviours. The fact that the first writer refers to the scheme as ‘presented below’ and that ‘political correctness’ is enclosed in quotes and anaphorically referred to as ‘a tired old expression’ and ‘it’, suggests a discourse-internal reading for both examples. The point of such examples is that a propositional/content distinction is required for exploring metadiscourse, but we need clear principles for identifying actual instances in practice.
诚然,许多专业和学术文本关注的并非自身,而是其他议题。它们旨在告知或说服读者了解世界上的活动、事物或人物。然而,同样重要的是,每篇文本中很大一部分内容并非关注外部世界,而是关注其内部论证和读者。此外,值得注意的是,对于意义而言,并非存在“主要”与“次要”之分。元话语并非仅仅支撑命题内容,它更是使命题内容连贯、易懂且对特定受众具有说服力的手段。正如马林诺夫斯基(1923)在80年前讨论“寒暄”时所论证的那样,语言的存在不仅是为了反映思想,也是为了满足其他交际需求。尤其重要的是,我们运用语言来表达社会关系,并与他人建立联系。因此,我们可以沿用马林诺夫斯基的观点,认为元话语并非次要的,而是专门的。它指导我们如何组织文本,并构建我们所表达的立场。正是它吸引受众,并促使他们接受我们的立场。
It is true that many professional and academic texts are concerned with issues other than themselves. They seek to inform or persuade readers of activities, objects or people in the world. Equally though, a large proportion of every text is not concerned with the world, but with its internal argument and its readers. It is also important to note that one is not ‘primary’ and one ‘secondary’ to the meaning of a text. Metadiscourse does not simply support propositional content: it is the means by which propositional content is made coherent, intelligible and persuasive to a particular audience. As Malinowski (1923) argued when discussing ‘phatic communion’ 80 years ago, language does not exist only to reflect thought, but also to satisfy other communicative needs. In particular we employ it to express social relations and establish bonds with others. Following Malinowski, then, we can say that metadiscourse is not secondary but specialized. It is how we organize out texts and construct a stance to what we say. It is what engages receivers and encourages them to accept our positions.
本质上,辛克莱(1981)在第一章中提到的“话语层面”的论述就隐含了这一观点。辛克莱的论述提供了一种动态的语言运作视角,指出我们如何通过构建文本素材和协商关系来创造文本,从而使他人能够理解。除了语言的命题性、交互性、信息性或观念性维度之外,辛克莱还认为,语言在构建和塑造作者对世界的理解方面发挥着重要作用,而这种理解最终会传递给读者。这是一种受众设计模型。
Essentially, this position is implied in Sinclair’s (1981) discussion of ‘planes of discourse’ mentioned in Chapter 1. Sinclair’s account offers a dynamic view of how language works by suggesting how we c reate text by setting out our material and negotiating relationships so others will understand it. In addition to the propositional, transactional, informative or ideational dimension of language, Sinclair argues that language performs important work in structuring and shaping the writer’s understandings of the world for readers. This is a model of recipient design.
他提出了一种基于两个基本组成部分的文本模型。一是表达、态度、互动或人际层面,反映了“语言使用者彼此协商事务的需求”;二是文本、组织和文本维护层面,说话者或作者在此层面将外部世界转化为语言世界。辛克莱尔对二者的区别解释如下:
He offers a model of text which rests on two basic components. One is the expressive, attitudinal, interactional or interpersonal plane which reflects ‘the need of language users to negotiate their affairs with one another’; and the other is the textual, organizational and text-maintenance plane where speakers or writers transform the world outside to the world of language. Sinclair explains the distinction like this:
当我们运用语言时,我们通过彼此协商来创造文本。在任何时刻,关于话语应达到何种效果、应执行何种行为或应包含哪些世界特征的决定,都是在互动层面做出的。因此,每个活动环节都具有存在性。但与此同时,它也建立在先前的文本之上,不断调整,将新材料与旧材料融合,并逐时记录。这种文本内部领域的决策则是在自主层面做出的。
As we put language to use, we make text by negotiating our affairs with each other. At any one point, the decisions about what effect utterances should aim at, what acts they should perform, or what features of the world they should incorporate, are decisions on the interactive plane. Each segment of activity thus has an existential quality. But at the same time it is building up from text which has gone before, readjusting, working in the new material with the old, and maintaining records, moment by moment. Decisions in this intra-textual area are made on the autonomous plane.
因此,在自主层面,语言的作用在于组织和分享相关的经验,并且“只关注语言本身,而不关注语言与文本之外的世界之间的联系方式”。在交互层面,语言则力求与读者协商并引导他们参与到这些经验之中。辛克莱尔用图解法将这些层面表示为图3.1。曲线象征着圆的一部分,圆内的一切与语言相关,圆外则是现实世界。交互层面则是连接这两个层面的界面。
So on the autonomous plane language works to organize and share relevant experiences and is ‘concerned with language only and not with the means by which language is related to the world outside the text’. On the interactive plane it seeks to negotiate and engage readers with those experiences. Sinclair represents these planes diagrammatically as in Figure 3.1. The curved lines suggest a portion of a circle where everything inside has to do with language and outside is the real world. The interactive plane is the interface between the two.
亨斯顿(2000:183)从作者和读者的角色角度看待这种区别。在任何时刻,作者都是信息的传递者,而读者则通过文本的结构和性质获得信息;这是自主层面。同时,在互动层面,作者扮演着文本构建者的角色,而读者则通过逐时互动的方式获得信息。就本文的讨论而言,该模型呈现了一种话语观,它将元话语与没有独立“文本”功能的命题内容区分开来。
Hunston (2000: 183) sees the distinction in terms of the roles of writer and reader. At any point the writer is an informer and the reader is informed by the structure and nature of the text; this is the autonomous plane. At the same time, on the interactive plane, the writer is acting as a text constructor and the reader is informed through moment-by-moment negotiation. In terms of the present discussion, the model presents a view of discourse which distinguishes metadiscourse from propositional content with no separate ‘textual’ function.
然而,我们也需要记住,命题性话语和元话语元素在文本中常常同时出现,甚至在同一句子中,而且这两个元素对于文本的连贯性和意义都至关重要。这种融合十分常见,每个元素都表达着自身的内容:一个关注世界,另一个关注文本及其接受。与命题性话语一样,元话语传达了作者的意图——它是信息的一部分,而非完全独立于信息之外。换句话说,我们必须将元话语视为交流过程中不可或缺的一部分,而不仅仅是对命题的补充说明。它不仅仅是维系更重要内容的“粘合剂”。元话语是文本各部分相互关联、构成文本意义的关键要素——它有助于将文本与其语境联系起来,同时考虑到读者的需求、理解、既有知识、互文经验以及相对地位。因此,元话语是分析作者如何与其主题和读者互动的重要概念,使我们能够比较不同社会群体成员所使用的策略。
We also need to remember, however, that both propositional and metadiscoursal elements occur together in texts, often in the same sentences, and that both elements are crucial to coherence and meaning. Such integration is common, with each element expressing its own content: one concerned with the world and the other with the text and its reception. Like propositional discourse, metadiscourse conveys the writer’s intended meaning – it is part of the message, not an entirely different one. In other words, we have to see metadiscourse as integral to the process of communication and not mere commentary on propositions. It is not simply the ‘glue’ that holds the more important parts of the text together, but is itself a crucial element of its meaning – that which helps relate a text to its context, taking readers’ needs, understandings, existing knowledge, intertextual experiences and relative status into account. Metadiscourse is therefore an important concept for analysing the ways writers engage with their subject matter and readers, allowing us to compare the strategies used by members of different social groups.
图 3.1 辛克莱的话语平面模型。
FIGURE 3.1 Sinclair’s planes of discourse model.
二、元话语表达了作者与读者之间的互动
ii. Metadiscourse expresses writer–reader interactions
元话语的第二个原则是,它必须被视为成功沟通所必需的互动的体现。因此,定义和编码方案必须摒弃元话语文献中常见的文本功能和人际功能二元对立的观点。相反,我认为所有元话语都是人际性的,因为它考虑到了读者的知识、文本经验和处理需求,并为作者提供了一系列修辞手法来实现这一目标(Hyland and Tse, 2004)。
A second principle of metadiscourse is that it must be seen as embodying the interactions necessary for successful communication. As such, definitions and coding schemes have to reject the duality of textual and interpersonal functions found in much of the metadiscourse literature. Instead, I suggest that all metadiscourse is interpersonal in that it takes account of the reader’s knowledge, textual experiences and processing needs and that it provides writers with an armoury of rhetorical appeals to achieve this (Hyland and Tse, 2004).
正如我们在上一章中所看到的,区分元话语的纯粹文本功能存在困难。大多数“文本元话语”是由连词(例如 so、because、and)和状语(例如 subsequent、first、therefore)及其相应的隐喻或释义表达(例如 as a result、on the other hand、needless to say)实现的。对于许多元话语分析家来说,这些连接关系(Vande Kopple,1985 年称之为“文本连接词”,Crismore等人, 1993 年称之为“逻辑连接词”)被视为“直接且无问题”的文本标记(Crismore等人, 1993:48)。但是,与其他“文本元话语”特征一样,连词标记的从句之间的过渡和连接既可以指向经验意义,也可以指向人际意义;既可以指向命题意义,也可以指向互动意义。我们倾向于将连词视为表达思想之间联系的方式,这或许是因为我们主要以观念为导向看待世界,但我们也可以将连词视为互动驱动的,有助于创造和维持不断变化的人际关系取向。
As we saw in the previous chapter, there are difficulties in distinguishing a purely textual function for metadiscourse. Most ‘textual metadiscourse’ is realized by conjuncts (so, because, and) and adverbials (subsequently, first, therefore), together with their respective metaphorical or paraphrasing expressions (as a result, on the other hand, needless to say). For many metadiscourse analysts, these conjunctive relations (called ‘text connectives’ by Vande Kopple, 1985 and ‘logical connectives’ by Crismore et al., 1993) are treated as ‘straightforward and unproblematic’ textual markers (Crismore et al., 1993: 48). But like other features of ‘textual metadiscourse’, the transitions and links that conjunctions mark between clauses can be oriented towards either the experiential or the interpersonal, to either propositional or interactional meanings. Our tendency to see conjunctions as expressing connections between ideas is perhaps a result of our primarily ideational orientation to the world, but we can also see conjunctions as interactionally motivated, contributing to the creation and maintenance of shifting interpersonal orientations.
因此,在某些情况下,所谓的“文本手段”处理的是话语逻辑:它们的作用是将文本紧密连接起来。而在另一些情况下,它们则关乎生活逻辑:它们的作用是扩展、阐述或增强命题的意义。以下示例可以体现这些不同的功能。在例 (2a) 中,“但是”、“然后”和“首先”这些连词发挥着概念性的作用,它们连接命题,并通过与关于世界的陈述建立联系,表明作者对概念之间关系的理解。另一方面,在例 (2b) 中,它们发挥着互动性的作用,使读者参与到话语中来,并意识到读者需要明确地表达论证中的联系:
In some cases, then, so-called ‘textual devices’ deal with the logic of discourse: they work to cement the text together. In other cases they concern the logic of life: they function to extend, elaborate or enhance propositional meanings. These distinct functions can be seen in the following examples. In (2a) the conjunctions but, then and first function ideationally, connecting propositions and signalling the writer’s understanding of the relations between ideas by creating links with statements about the world. In (2b), on the other hand, they function interactionally to engage the reader as a participant in the discourse, recognizing his or her need for explicit signalling of links in the argument:
(2)(a)哈米森再次发起进攻,但他投球过高,雅各布斯直接将球击向地面,漂亮地跑了四分。
(2) (a) Harmison returns to the attack, but he overpitches and Jacobs punches him straight down the ground for four lovely runs.
(板球比赛逐局解说)
(cricket over-by-over commentary)
我遇到过一个人,他被迫为这类戏剧弹奏钢琴伴奏好几年,然后又被迫从事非常艰苦的体力劳动,他说他很享受这种艰苦的体力劳动。
I met one guy who was forced to play piano accompaniment, for these kinda plays, for several years and then was forced to do very hard labor and he said he enjoyed the hard labor.
(大学研讨会)
(university seminar)
开展市场调研项目是为了帮助解决特定的市场营销问题,但首先必须明确定义问题。
A marketing research project is undertaken to help resolve a specific marketing problem but first the problem must be clearly defined.
(市场营销教科书)
(Marketing textbook)
(b)这座城市是个很棒的旅游胜地,但你会想在那里开银行吗?
(b) The city is a great place to visit, but would you want to bank there?
(广告)
(advertisement)
如果说个人成员应该凌驾于社会成员之上,那么理想的政治安排就是那些以牺牲社会权威为代价来促进个人自主性的安排。
If it is said that the individual constituent should dominate over the social one, then the desirable political arrangements will be those that foster individual autonomy at the expense of social authority.
(哲学文章)
(Philosophy article)
首先,将烤箱预热至 190 摄氏度。在 10 个松饼模具中轻轻涂抹油脂,或铺上松饼纸。
First, preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
(香蕉松饼食谱)
(banana muffin recipe)
人际交往中连词的用法或许是最……这一点在让步形式的使用中显而易见,因为这些形式既表明作者预期会出现意料之外的情况,又能监测读者对文章的反应(例如,Martin 和 Rose,2003)。尤其在学术写作中,追踪读者的预期是一项至关重要的沟通策略。让步形式通过展现对读者理解的敏感性并明确尝试与之互动,在修辞上承认了除作者自身观点之外的其他声音。例如,在前面的例子中,作者所做的不仅仅是创作一个文本连贯的作品;他们还在调整自身以符合社群的预期,并塑造读者的角色,从而获得读者对其观点的更多理解和支持(3)。当作者试图阻止潜在的负面信息或相互竞争的解读时,这一点尤为重要(4)。
The interpersonal use of conjunctions is perhaps most apparent in the use of concessive forms as these both mark what the writer anticipates will be unexpected and monitor the reader’s response to the discourse (e.g. Martin and Rose, 2003). In academic writing in particular, tracking readers’ expectations is a vital interpersonal strategy. Concessives rhetorically acknowledge voices other than the writer’s by demonstrating a sensitivity to audience understandings and explicitly attempting to engage with these. In the examples opposite, for instance, the w riters are doing more than creating a textually cohesive text; they are manoeuvring themselves into line with community expectations and shaping the reader’s role to gain a more sympathetic hearing for their views (3). This is especially important when writers seek to head off potentially detracting information or competing interpretations (4):
(3) 《言语卫生》一书值得一读,尽管它有时因其极端观点和表达方式而令人恼火。
(3) Verbal Hygiene is worth reading, even if it is sometimes irritating in its extreme views and expressions.
(书评)
(book review)
诚然,本研究的数据收集可能属于“机会主义”范畴,因此研究结果的代表性非常有限。
Admittedly, the data collection of the present study may be classified as ‘opportunistic’, rendering the representativeness of the research findings very limited.
(博士论文)
(PhD dissertation)
(4) 当然,这些调查结果为警察绩效提供了更客观、更独立的视角,但调查结果与整个警务部门相关,不能简化为个人和团队绩效。
(4) Of course, these survey findings provided a more objective and independent perspective on police performance, but the findings are relevant to the service as a whole and cannot be reduced to individual and team performance.
(硕士论文)
(MA dissertation)
正如Ortmeyer、Quelch和Salmon(1991)所指出的,EDLP(天天低价)商店的低价策略吸引的是时间有限的消费者,而PROMO(促销)商店的优惠活动则吸引的是那些只挑选特定商品的消费者。然而,市场定位不仅仅关乎价格。
As suggested by Ortmeyer, Quelch, and Salmon (1991), the EDLP store basket price attracts time constrained consumers, and the PROMO store’s deals attract the potential cherry pickers. However, positioning involves more than pricing.
(研究论文)
(research paper)
换句话说,与指向非语言现象的命题意义和人际意义不同,文本功能是语言固有的。它的存在是为了阐释命题意义和人际意义。将文本的人际互动方面整合为一个连贯的整体。因此,我们应该将文本性视为话语实现本身的一般属性,或许类似于句法。这种解释与其他学者的观点相符。例如,Halliday(1994)指出,文本要素具有赋能作用,它们通过使作者能够生成在其语境中具有意义的文本,从而促进话语的构建。
In other words, unlike propositional and interpersonal meanings, both of which orient to non-linguistic phenomena, the textual function is intrinsic to language. It exists to construe both propositional and interpersonal aspects of texts into a coherent whole. We should, then, see textuality as a general property of the realization of discourse itself, perhaps analogous to syntax. This interpretation corresponds to that of other writers. Halliday (1994), for instance, refers to textual elements as having an enabling role, facilitating the creation of discourse by allowing writers to generate texts which make sense within their context.
总之,所谓的“文本”手段通过关联关于世界的陈述来组织文本,从而构成命题;同时,它们也通过将陈述与读者联系起来来组织文本,从而构成元话语;它们并非独立于这两种功能而运作。图3.2展示了这种关系。
In sum, so-called ‘textual’ devices organize texts as propositions by relating statements about the world and as metadiscourse by relating statements to readers; they do not function independently of these two functions. Figure 3.2 illustrates this relationship.
图 3.2 文本中“文本”手段的作用。
FIGURE 3.2 The role of ‘textual’ devices in texts.
汤普森(2001)和汤普森与特特拉(1995)对与此讨论相关的互动进行了重要的刻画。他们如同辛克莱在其话语层面模型中一样,不仅区分了文本的观念层面和互动层面,而且还区分了两种主要的互动类型,即互动资源和互动性资源。互动资源指的是作者如何根据对读者可能掌握的知识和理解的预判来安排文本结构。这会影响文本的“读者友好性”,主要涉及信息流的管理,即作者如何通过预测读者可能的反应和需求来引导读者。另一方面,互动性资源则更具个人性,它让读者参与到文本的构建过程中。这指的是作者对文本进行评论和评价的明确介入。材料,因此与哈利迪的人际元功能更直接相关,
An important characterization of interactions relevant to this discussion is provided by Thompson (2001) and Thompson and Thetela (1995) who, like Sinclair in his model of planes of discourse, not only separate the ideational and interactive aspects of texts but also distinguish two main types of interaction. These they call the interactive and the interactional. Interactive resources concern the ways writers signal the arrangement of their texts based on their appreciation of the reader’s likely knowledge and understandings. This influences the ‘reader-friendliness’ of a text and primarily involves the management of information flow, addressing how writers guide readers by anticipating their likely reactions and needs. Interactional resources, on the other hand, are more personal and involve the reader collaboratively in the development of the text. These concern the writer’s explicit interventions to comment on and evaluate material, and so relate more directly to Halliday’s interpersonal metafunction which
它关注语言的社会、表达和意动功能,表达说话者的角度:他的态度和判断,他对情境中角色关系的编码,以及他说话的动机。
is concerned with the social, expressive and conative functions of language, with expressing the speaker’s angle: his attitudes and judgments, his encoding of the role relationships in the situation, and his motive in saying anything at all.
(Halliday 和 Hasan,1989:26)
(Halliday and Hasan, 1989: 26)
汤普森(2001:61)指出,互动性的这两个方面——互动本身和互动性——“本质上是一枚硬币的两面”。这是因为,为了引发回应而进行的显性干预,例如提问或指令,虽然其主要目的可能被视为互动性的,但也能预示文本接下来的走向,因此也具有互动性。同样,诸如连词之类的互动资源不仅能构建有助于理解的结构联系,还能通过预判甚至化解读者可能提出的异议或反驳,发挥重要的互动功能(参见巴顿,1995)。
Thompson (2001: 61) points out that these two aspects of interaction, the interactive and the interactional, ‘are essentially the two sides of the same coin’. This is because an overt intervention to elicit a response, such as a question or directive which might be seen as primarily having an interactional purpose, can also signal where the text is going next, and so function interactively as well. Similarly, interactive resources such as conjunctions not only create structural links which assist comprehension, but also serve important interactional functions by anticipating, and perhaps deflecting, possible reader objections or counterclaims (cf. Barton, 1995).
因此,互动性代表了作者在文本中的公开表达,而互动则更为隐晦地体现了这种表达。正如汤普森(2001:61)所说:
The interactional thus represents the writer’s overt performance in the text while the interactive more discreetly embodies it. As Thompson (2001: 61) puts it:
作者并非仅仅通过互动来塑造文本以适应读者,而是可以在任何时候选择将他们对文本展开的掌控公开化,并明确地让作者和读者参与到这一过程中……选择这种方式的原因多种多样,但通常都体现了作者试图以某种方式让读者参与其中的尝试。
Rather than simply moulding the text interactively to fit the readers, writers may choose at any point to bring their management of the unfolding of the text to the surface and to engage themselves and their readers explicitly in the process. . . . The reasons why this option might be selected are very varied but typically reflect an attempt to involve the reader in some way.
这种参与体现了与读者的团结,表明作者关心读者对文本的理解以及作者的立场。正如我们将看到的,它也通过操纵读者对命题内容的理解并鼓励他们接受这些命题内容,从而达到引导读者立场的目的。
Such involvement displays solidarity with readers, showing concern for their processing of the text, and the stance of the writer. It also, as we shall see, works to position readers by manipulating their understanding of propositional matter and encouraging them to accept it.
总之,我们应该将论证中各要素之间联系和关系的明确表达视为作者在写作时对自身和读者的认知。通过提及文本、读者或信息,作者这表明作者对语境的敏感性,即通过预测读者可能了解的内容以及可能的反应。因此,所谓的文本元话语实际上是文本人际特征的另一个方面。它涉及作者为了迎合读者的理解、引导他们的阅读并让他们意识到作者偏好的解读,而做出的突出某些关系和组织结构的决定。由此可见,所有元话语都指向作者与读者之间的互动。
In sum, we should see the explicit signalling of connections and relationships between elements in an argument as related to the writer’s awareness of self and of the reader when writing. By making reference to the text, the audience or the message, the writer indicates his or her sensitivity to the context of the discourse, by making predictions about what the audience is likely to know and how it is likely to respond. So-called textual metadiscourse is therefore actually another aspect of the interpersonal features of a text. It concerns decisions by the writer to highlight certain relationships and aspects of organization to accommodate readers’ understandings, guide their reading, and make them aware of the writer’s preferred interpretations. We can, then, say that all metadiscourse refers to interactions between the writer and reader.
三、元话语区分外部关系和内部关系
iii. Metadiscourse distinguishes external and internal relations
如果我们承认许多所谓的“文本”项目可以根据其语境实现人际交往或命题目的,那么我们就需要一种方法来区分它们在话语中的主要功能。这就引出了元话语的第三个关键特征,也是我之前多次提到的,即“内部”指称和“外部”指称之间的区别。
If we accept that many so-called ‘textual’ items can realize either interpersonal or propositional purposes depending on their context, then we need a means of distinguishing their primary function in the discour se. This brings us to the third key feature of metadiscourse, and one I have alluded to several times already, the distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ reference.
连接词再次清晰地体现了这种划分,它们既可以连接论述中的各个步骤(内部连接),将话语组织成一个论证;也可以连接文本之外的世界中的活动(外部连接),将经验呈现为一系列事件(Martin,1992)。因此,内部连接连接叙述中的事件,且仅具有交际功能;而外部连接则指涉这些事件本身。Halliday(1994:325)在讨论时间连接词时,对这种区别做出了明确的阐述:
Once again, connective items offer a clear example of this division as they can function to either connect steps in an exposition (internal), organizing the discourse as an argument, or they can connect activities in the world outside the text (external), representing experiences as a series of events (Martin, 1992). An internal relation thus connects events in the account and is solely communicative, while an external relation refers to those situations themselves. Halliday (1994: 325) provides an unambiguous statement of this difference when discussing temporal connectors:
许多时间连接词既有“内部”解释,也有“外部”解释;也就是说,它们所指的时间是话语本身的展开过程,而非所指过程的时间顺序。就语义的功能成分而言,它是人际时间,而非经验时间。
Many temporal conjunctives have an ‘internal’ as well as an ‘external’ interpretation; that is, the time they refer to is the temporal unfolding of the discourse itself, not the temporal sequence of the processes referred to. In terms of the functional components of semantics, it is interpersonal not experiential time.
例如,下面 (5) 中的连接装置表达了活动和过程之间的关系,因此是面向经验的。因此,这些话语暗示了某事将在世界上如何发生的后果,对比了两种文化的特征,然后告诉我们事件会随着时间的推移而发生:
For example, the connecting devices in (5) below express a relation between activities and processes and so are experientially oriented. In these utterances therefore signals a consequence concerning how something will happen in the world, in contrast compares the characteristics of two cultures, and then tells us that events follow in time:
(5)我们理解将您的账户转移到我们这里可能会让您感到畏惧,因此我们将为您完成大部分工作。
(5) We understand that the idea of moving your account to us may be daunting, therefore we will do most of it for you.
(银行广告)
(bank advertisement)
与西方文化相反,亚洲社会强调相互依存的自我观和集体主义。
In contrast to Western culture, Asian societies put emphasis on an interdependent view of self and collectivism.
(教科书)
(textbook)
于是摩西完成了这项工作。随后,有一朵云彩遮盖了会幕,耶和华的荣光充满了会幕。
So Moses finished the work. Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
(圣经)
(The Bible)
相比之下,下文 (6) 中的例子建立了话语各方面之间的关系,并表达了元话语功能。它们构建了论证步骤内部的逻辑关系。因此,此处表明作者正在从前面的论证中得出结论,而相反,则标记了一种析取关系,提醒读者偏离了先前文本设定的预期,然后实现了论证中的一个逻辑条件:
In contrast, the examples in (6) below set up relations between aspects of the discourse and express metadiscoursal functions. They construct logical relations which are internal to the steps in their arguments. Here therefore signals that the writer is drawing a conclusion from the preceding argument, in contrast flags a disjunctive relation, alerting the reader to a move away from the expectancies set up by the prior text, and then realizes a logical condition in an argument:
(6)这项民意调查是在本月混乱的内阁改组之后进行的,结果显示保守党支持率为 33%,工党为 32%,自由民主党为 25%。因此,根据今天的选举结果,保守党将在下次选举中增加 41 个席位,自由民主党将增加 20 个席位,这将使布莱尔的多数席位变得非常微弱。
(6) The poll was taken just after this month’s messy reshuffle and puts the Tories on 33 points, Labour on 32 and the Liberal Democrats on 25. Therefore, on today’s results the Tories would gain an extra 41 seats and the Lib Dems 20 in the next election, leaving Blair with an uncomfortably narrow majority.
(报纸文章)
(newspaper article)
相比之下,低集体主义者中并没有发现这些现象。
In contrast, these findings were not found among the low collectivists.
(博士论文)
(PhD dissertation)
如果您将刷卡与您的手机号码关联,那么您可以在超过 60,000 个带有绿色充值标志的充值点使用它。
If you link the swipe card to your mobile number then you can use it at any one of over 60,000 TopUp points where you see the green TopUp sign.
(手机SIM卡宣传册)
(mobile phone SIM brochure)
话语特征的功能在于指称话语内部的关系或与现实世界事件的关系也可以通过排序手段的运用来体现。这些手段可以用来安排论证,并告知读者互动本身是如何组织的(7),或者用来展现事件如何作为特定过程中的步骤展开,将一个现实世界的事件与另一个现实世界的事件联系起来(8):
The function of discourse features to refer to either relationships internal to the discourse or to events in the world can also be seen in the use of sequencing devices. These resources can be employed to arrange the argument and inform readers of how the interaction itself is being organized (7), or to the how events unfold as steps in a particular process, relating one real-world event to another (8):
(7) 首先,第一节阐述了完整图像在压缩中的重要性。其次,介绍了用于无损图像编码的预测器。第三,通过结果和分析展示了所提出的压缩方法的性能。
(7) Firstly, the importance of complete images in compression is described in section one. Secondly, predictors used for lossless image coding are introduced. Thirdly, the results and analysis are used to show the performance of the proposed compression.
(博士论文)
(PhD dissertation)
首先,选中图片并双击。其次,点击箭头按钮前进或后退。最后,点击操作面板上的“确定”按钮返回上一页。
First, select the picture and double click on it. Second, click on the arrow buttons to go forward or backward. Finally, click ‘OK’ on the operation panel to return to the previous display.
(相机说明书)
(camera manual)
(8) 首先,将第一阶段(N1)和第二阶段(N2)的观测值数量合并,并进行“混合”回归。其次,分别对这两个阶段进行单独回归。最后,应用F检验……
(8) Firstly, the number of observations in the first segment (N1) and the second segment (N2) were combined and a ‘pooled’ regression conducted. Secondly, individual regressions of the two periods were carried out. Then, finally, the F test was applied . . .
(博士论文)
(PhD dissertation)
在学术话语中,通过赋予条目命题价值或元话语价值,区分内部指涉和外部指涉,便能区分两种作者角色,这体现了邦顿(Bunton,1999:S47)关于研究行为和写作行为的观点。前者涉及研究过程中发生的事件,这些事件构成文本主题的一部分,例如上文例(8)中描述实验的步骤。此时,研究者扮演的是研究者的角色,而非写作者的角色,他们报告的是无论最终如何撰写研究成果都会进行的过程。描述自然科学中的实验或人文学科中的理论模型,意味着作者在报告现实世界中的事件。相比之下,构建论证时,作者需要选择如何呈现内容,以及如何最好地为特定读者群体塑造材料,而这正是元话语发挥作用的地方。
In assigning either propositional or metadiscoursal values to items, in academic discourse the distinction between internal and external reference differentiates two writer roles, reflecting Bunton’s (1999: S47) view of research acts and writer acts. The former concerns events which occur in the research process itself and which form part of the subject matter of the text, such as the steps used to describe the experiment in example (8) above. Here the researcher is acting as a researcher, not as a writer, reporting processes that would be carried out irrespective of how the research is eventually written up. Describing an experiment in the hard sciences or a theoretical model in the humanities involves the writer in reporting events in the world. In contrast, by constructing an argument, the writer is making choices about presentation and how best to fashion material for a particular readership and this is where metadiscourse is used.
这种内部/外部区分类似于模态逻辑中关于“事”(de re)模态和“言辞”( de dicto)模态的区分,即语言项目在指称命题所指涉的现实或命题本身时所扮演的角色。帕尔默(Palmer,1990:185)将这种区分视为认知模态和动态模态,后者“关注句子主语的能力或意愿,而非作者的观点”(1990:36)。也就是说,诸如“可能”( might )和“可能”(possible )之类的词语,当它们表达作者对某事可能性的推断时,可以被视为人际特征;而当它们指称能够影响结果的现实世界促成条件时,则可以被视为命题特征(Coates,1983:113;Hyland,1998a:110)。
The internal/external distinction is analogous to that made in modal logic between de re and de dicto modality, concerning the roles of linguistic items in referring to either the reality denoted by propositions or the propositions themselves. Palmer (1990: 185) recognizes this distinction as epistemic and dynamic modality, the latter ‘concerned with the ability or volition of the subject of the sentence, rather than the opinions of the writer’ (1990: 36). That is, items such as might and possible can be regarded as interpersonal features where they express writers’ inferences about the likelihood of something, and as propositional where they are referring to real-world enabling conditions which can affect outcomes (Coates, 1983: 113; Hyland, 1998a: 110).
因此,决定性因素在于事件的客观性,即结果究竟与说话者对某事发生可能性的评估相关,还是与可能促成该事发生的外部环境相关。最清晰的例子是那些明确阐述了此类客观促成条件的例子。例如,(9)评论了作者对可能性的估计,因此是元话语的一个例子;而(10)则是一个命题,因为它将结果描述为取决于某些特定情况。
The determining factor is therefore the objectivity of the event, whether the outcome is related to the speaker’s assessments of possibility about something happening or to external circumstances which might make it possible. The clearest cases are those where such objective enabling conditions are made explicit. Thus (9) comments on the writer’s estimation of possibilities, and is thus an example of metadiscourse, while (10) is propositional as it represents an outcome as depending on certain circumstances.
(9)市场表现不佳可能是由于顾客转向其他在线渠道购买食品杂货所致。
(9) The poor market performance could be due to customers switching to alternative on-line sources for their groceries.
(商业报告)
(business report)
施特劳斯也有可能退出今年冬天的津巴布韦巡回演出。
It is possible that Strauss will also pull out of the tour to Zimbabwe this winter.
(报纸)
(newspaper)
(10)在英国的小鸟中,这或许是最常见、最广为人知的,因为它经常出没于人类的住所,甚至生活在大城市的中心。
(10) Of our small British birds, perhaps this is the most common and well-known, as it frequents the dwellings of man and even lives in the heart of great cities.
(鸟类指南)
(bird guide)
一张旅行卡可以让您一天之内游览所有这些景点。
A Travelcard makes it possible to visit all these sites in one day.
(伦敦指南)
(London guide)
在某些情况下,认知解读和动态解读都是可能的,但编码很少出现问题。
In some cases both epistemic and dynamic readings are possible, but coding is rarely problematic.
因此,有充分的理由将元话语与文本的命题内容区分开来,并将其更广泛地视为涵盖话语互动方面的范畴,即运用……外部关系和内部关系的标准。如果这个术语要作为一种概念化和理解作家如何创造意义以及如何与他人协商其思想的手段而具有任何连贯性,那么区分现实世界中的事物和话语中的事物就至关重要。
There are, then, good reasons for distinguishing metadiscourse from the propositional content of a text and for seeing it more broadly as encompassing the interactional aspects of discourse, using the criteria of external and internal relations. If the term is to have any coherence as a means of conceptualizing and understanding the ways writers create meanings and negotiate their ideas with others, then the distinction between matters in the world and those in the discourse are central.
3.2 元话语的分类
3.2 A classification of metadiscourse
表3.1总结的分类方案体现了这些原则。它基于一种功能性方法,将元话语视为作者指称文本、作者或读者的方式。该方案承认元话语的语境特殊性,并更精细地运用了Thompson和Thetela(1995)对互动资源和互动性资源的区分,以体现互动的组织和评价特征(Hyland,2001a;Hyland和Tse,2004)。虽然该模型很大程度上借鉴了Thompson和Thetela的理论,但它通过纳入立场和参与特征(Hyland,2001a)以及借鉴早期的元话语模型(Hyland,1998a和2000),拓宽了研究范围。
The classification scheme summarized in Table 3.1 embodies these principles. It is based on a functional approach which regards metadiscourse as the ways writers refer to the text, the writer or the reader. It acknowledges the contextual specificity of metadiscourse and, at a finer degree of delicacy, employs Thompson and Thetela’s (1995) distinction between interactive and interactional resources to acknowledge the organizational and evaluative features of interaction (Hyland, 2001a; Hyland and Tse, 2004). But while the model owes a great deal to Thompson and Thetela’s conception, it takes a wider focus by including both stance and engagement features (Hyland, 2001a) and by building on earlier models of metadiscourse (Hyland, 1998a and 2000).
表3.1元话语的人际模型
Table 3.1 An Interpersonal model of metadiscourse
该模型认为元话语由互动的两个维度构成:
The model recognizes that metadiscourse is comprised of the two dimensions of interaction:
1.互动维度。这指的 是作者对参与受众的认知,以及作者如何努力适应受众可能的知识水平、兴趣、修辞预期和理解能力。作者在此的目的是塑造和约束文本,以满足特定读者的需求,并构建论点,使读者能够理解作者预设的解读和目标。因此,此类资源的运用关注的是话语的组织方式,而非经验本身,并揭示了文本在多大程度上是根据读者的需求而构建的。
1. The interactive dimension. This concerns the writer’s awareness of a participating audience and the ways he or she seeks to accommodate its probable knowledge, interests, rhetorical expectations and processing abilities. The writer’s purpose here is to shape and constrain a text to meet the needs of particular readers, setting out arguments so that they will recover the writer’s preferred interpretations and goals. The use of resources in this category therefore addresses ways of organizing discourse, rather than experience, and reveals the extent to which the text is constructed with the readers’ needs in mind.
2.互动维度。这指的是作者通过介入和评论 自己的信息来进行互动的方式。作者在此的目标是使自己的信息…… 明确表达观点并让读者参与其中,允许他们对文本的展开做出回应。这是作者对文本“声音”或社群认可的个性的表达,包括作者传达判断和公开与读者建立联系的方式。这里的元话语本质上是评价性的和互动性的,表达团结,预见反对意见,并回应与他人的假想对话。它揭示了作者在多大程度上与读者共同构建文本。
2. The interactional dimension. This concerns the ways writers conduct interaction by intruding and commenting on their message. The writer’s goal here is to make his or her views explicit and to involve readers by allowing them to respond to the unfolding text. This is the writer’s expression of a textual ‘voice’, or community-recognized personality, and includes the ways he or she conveys judgements and overtly aligns him- or herself with readers. Metadiscourse here is essentially evaluative and engaging, expressing solidarity, anticipating objections and responding to an imagined dialogue with others. It reveals the extent to which the writer works to jointly construct the text with readers.
3.3 元话语资源
3.3 Metadiscourse resources
这两个维度是任何沟通方式(无论是口头还是书面)的决定性特征,并通过一系列修辞手法来表达,而这些修辞手法本身又发挥着更具体的功能。我将在下文中简要讨论这些手法。
These two dimensions are defining characteristics of any communication, whether spoken or written, and are expressed through a range of rhetorical features which themselves perform more specific functions. I will briefly discuss these below.
一、互动资源
i. Interactive resources
如上所述,这些特征用于以目标受众可能认为连贯且令人信服的方式组织命题信息。它们显然不仅仅是文本组织,因为它们的运用取决于作者对读者的了解。它们是作者评估读者的预期理解能力、对相关文本的理解、对解释性指导的需求以及作者与读者之间关系的结果。这些特征大致可分为五大类:
As discussed above, these features are used to organize propositional information in ways that a projected target audience is likely to find coherent and convincing. They are clearly not simply text-organizing as their deployment depends on what the writer knows of his or her readers. They are a consequence of the writer’s assessment of the reader’s assumed comprehension capacities , understandings of related texts, and need for interpretive guidance, as well as the relationship between the writer and reader. There are five broad sub-categories:
过渡标记主要由连词和状语短语构成,它们帮助读者理解论证中各个步骤之间的语用联系。它们标示作者思维中的并列、因果和对比关系,表达语篇段落之间的关联。这些 标记是否构成句法上的并列或从属关系并不重要,但要被视为元语篇,它们必须在语篇内部而非外部发挥作用,帮助读者理解不同观点之间的联系。表3.2展示了Martin和Rose(2003:127)如何总结内部和外部过渡词所扮演的不同语篇角色。并列标记用于向论证添加要素,可能包含诸如and、furthermore、moreover、by the way等词条。对比标记用于表明论证的相似性(similarly、likely、equally、in the same way、correctly等)或差异性(in contrast、however、but、on the against、on the other hand等)。结果关系要么告诉读者正在得出或证明某个结论(因此,所以,因此,总之,等等),要么告诉读者正在反驳某个论点(诚然,然而,无论如何,总之,当然)。
• Transition markers are mainly conjunctions and adverbial phrases which help readers interpret pragmatic connections between steps in an argument. They signal additive, causative and contrastive relations in the writer’s thinking, expressing relationships between stretches of discourse. It is unimportant whether items here contribute to syntactic coordination or subordination, but to count as metadiscourse they must perform a role internal to the discourse rather than the outside world, helping the reader interpret links between ideas. Table 3.2 shows how Martin and Rose (2003: 127) summarize the different discourse roles played by internal and external transitions. Addition adds elements to an argument and potentially consists of items such as and, furthermore, moreover, by the way, etc. Comparison marks arguments as either similar (similarly, likewise, equally, in the same way, correspondingly, etc.) or different (in contrast, however, but, on the contrary, on the other hand etc.). Consequence relations either tell readers that a conclusion is being drawn or justified (thus, therefore, consequently, in conclusion, etc.) or that an argument is being countered (admittedly, nevertheless, anyway, in any case, of course).
表 3.2内部和外部过渡的不同角色
Table 3.2 Different roles for internal and external transitions
• 框架标记标示文本边界或示意图式文本结构要素。同样,需要注意的是,这些特征用于区分文本中论证的顺序,而非事件的时间顺序。此处包含的要素用于对论证进行排序、标记、预测和转换,从而构成话语。 对读者或听众而言,框架标记清晰易懂。因此,它们可以用来对文本的不同部分进行排序,或者对论证进行内部排序,通常起到更明确的叠加关系的作用(首先,然后,1/2,a/b,同时,接下来)。它们可以明确地标记文本的不同阶段(总而言之,总之,引言)。它们可以阐明话语目标(我在此论证,我的目的是,本文提出,我希望说服,原因有几点)。它们还可以指示话题的转换(嗯,好的,好的,现在,让我们回到……)。因此,此类标记提供了关于话语要素的框架信息。
• Frame markers signal text boundaries or elements of schematic text structure. Once again, care needs to be taken to identify features which order arguments in the text rather than events in time. Items included here function to sequence, label, predict and shift arguments, making the discourse clear to readers or listeners. Frame markers can therefore be used to sequence parts of the text or to internally order an argument, often acting as more explicit additive relations (first, then, 1/2, a/b, at the same time, next). They can explicitly label text stages (to summarize, in sum, by way of introduction). They announce discourse goals (I argue here, my purpose is, the paper proposes, I hope to persuade, there are several reasons why). And they can indicate topic shifts (well, right, OK, now, let us return to). Items in this category therefore provide framing information about elements of the discourse.
• 内指标记是指指向文本其他部分的表达方式(参见图2,以及下一节,如上所述)。这些标记使额外的概念材料更加突出,从而帮助读者理解作者的意图,它们通常通过引用先前的内容或预示即将出现的内容来促进理解并支撑论点。通过引导读者理解讨论,内指标记有助于引导读者形成对文章的偏好性解读。
• Endophoric markers are expressions which refer to other parts of the text (see Figure 2, refer to the next section, as noted above). These make additional ideational material salient and therefore available to the reader in aiding the recovery of the writer’s meanings, often facilitating comprehension and supporting arguments by referring to earlier material or anticipating something yet to come. By guiding readers through the discussion they help steer them to a preferred interpretation or reading of the discourse.
• 证据性论据是“对来自其他来源的观点的元语言表述”(Thomas and Hawes,1994:129),它引导读者的理解,并确立作者对主题的掌控。在某些文体中,这可能涉及传闻或对可靠来源的归因;在学术写作中,它指的是基于社群的文献,并提供重要的支持。 论证中的证据要素区分了谁对某个立场负责,虽然这可能有助于达到说服的目的,但它需要与作者对该观点的立场区分开来,后者被编码为一种人际特征。
• Evidentials are ‘metalinguistic representations of an idea from another source’ (Thomas and Hawes, 1994: 129) which guide the reader’s interpretation and establish an authorial command of the subject. In some genres this may involve hearsay or attribution to a reliable source; in academic writing it refers to a community-based literature and provides important support for arguments. Evidentials distinguish who is responsible for a position and while this may contribute to a persuasive goal, it needs to be distinguished from the writer’s stance towards the view, which is coded as an interpersonal feature.
代码 注释通过改写、解释或阐述已描述的内容,提供额外信息,以确保读者能够理解作者的本意。它们反映了作者对读者知识储备的预判,通常以“这被称为”、“换句话说”、“也就是说”、“这可以定义为”、“例如”等短语引出。或者,它们也可以用括号括起来。
• Code glosses supply additional information, by rephrasing, explaining or elaborating what has been said, to ensure the reader is able to recover the writer’s intended meaning. They reflect the writer’s predictions about the reader’s knowledge-base and are introduced by phrases such as this is called, in other words, that is, this can be defined as, for example, etc. Alternatively, they are marked off by parentheses.
二、互动资源
ii. Interactional resources
这些特征让读者参与其中,并为他们提供参与讨论的机会,使读者能够了解作者对命题信息和自身观点的看法。它们有助于控制文本中的个性程度,因为作者会承认并联系其他读者,引导他们理解自己的论点,集中他们的注意力,承认他们的不确定性,并引导他们进行解读。但这些资源不仅是作者表达观点的手段,也是他们与他人社会既定立场互动的方式。因此,它们能够预判、承认、挑战或压制其他可能不同的立场,从而扩大或限制此类观点的传播机会(White,2003)。同样,这些特征也包含五个子类别。
These features involve readers and open opportunities for them to contribute to the discourse by alerting them to the author’s perspective towards both propositional information and readers themselves. They help control the level of personality in a text as writers acknowledge and connect to others, pulling them along with their argument, focusing their attention, acknowledging their uncertainties and guiding them to interpretations. But these resources are not only the means by which writers express their views, but are also how they engage with the socially determined positions of others. They therefore act to anticipate, acknowledge, challenge or suppress alternative, potentially divergent positions and so work to expand or restrict opportunities for such views (White, 2003). Once again, there are five sub-categories.
• 缓和语是诸如“可能”、“或许”和“也许”之类的修辞手法,表明作者承认存在其他不同的声音和观点,因此对某个论点不作完全肯定。缓和语强调立场的主观性,允许信息以观点而非事实的形式呈现,从而使该立场具有协商的余地。作者必须权衡如何赋予某个断言以分量,考虑他们希望该断言达到的精确度或可靠性,并可能主张某种保护措施。 最终导致其政权垮台(Hyland,1998a)。因此,使用限定词暗示某个陈述是基于作者合理的推理而非确凿的知识,这表明我们应该谨慎地赋予该陈述一定的可信度。
• Hedges are devices such as possible, might and perhaps, which indicate the writer’s decision to recognize alternative voices and viewpoints and so withhold complete commitment to a proposition. Hedges emphasize the subjectivity of a position by allowing information to be presented as an opinion rather than a fact and therefore open that position to negotiation. Writers must calculate what weight to give to an assertion, considering the degree of precision or reliability that they want it to carry and perhaps claiming protection in the event of its eventual overthrow (Hyland, 1998a). Hedges therefore imply that a statement is based on the writer’s plausible reasoning rather than certain knowledge, indicating the degree of confidence it is prudent to attribute to it.
另一方面,诸如“清楚地”、“显然”和“证明”之类的词语被称为“ 强化词”,它们使作者能够排除其他可能性,避免冲突观点,并表达其论点的确定性。强化词表明,作者意识到可能存在不同的立场,但选择缩小这种多样性而非扩大它,以单一而自信的声音来应对各种可能性。通过排除其他可能性,强化词强调了确定性,并通过表明作者对主题的参与和与读者的团结来建立融洽的关系,从而与读者共同反对其他声音(Hyland,1999a)。强化词的使用通过强调得出与作者相同结论所需的共同经验来加强论证。因此,文本中缓和词和强化词的平衡表明了作者愿意在多大程度上考虑其他可能性,从而在传达对文本内容的重视和对读者的尊重方面发挥着重要作用。
• Boosters, on the other hand, are words such as clearly, obviously and demonstrate, which allow writers to close down alternatives, head off conflicting views and express their certainty in what they say. Boosters suggest that the writer recognizes potentially diverse positions but has chosen to narrow this diversity rather than enlarge it, confronting alternatives with a single, confident voice. By closing down possible alternatives, boosters emphasize certainty and construct rapport by marking involvement with the topic and solidarity with an audience, taking a joint position against other voices (Hyland, 1999a). Their use strengthens an argument by emphasizing the mutual experiences needed to draw the same conclusions as the writer. The balance of hedges and boosters in a text thus indicates to what extent the writer is willing to entertain alternatives and so plays an important role in conveying commitment to text content and respect for readers.
态度 标记表明作者对命题的情感态度,而非认知态度。态度标记并非评论信息的性质、可能的关联性、可靠性或真伪,而是传达惊讶、同意、重要性、义务感、沮丧等情绪。态度可以通过从属连词、比较级、进行时态、标点符号、文本位置等方式表达,但最明确的语篇表达方式是通过态度动词(例如“同意”、“更喜欢”)、句子副词(例如“不幸的是”、“希望如此”)和形容词(例如“合适的”、“合乎逻辑的”、“卓越的”)。
• Attitude markers indicate the writer’s affective, rather than epistemic, attitude to propositions. Instead of commenting on the status of information, its probable relevance, reliability or truth, attitude markers convey surprise, agreement, importance, obligation, frustration, and so on. While attitude is expressed by the use of subordination, comparatives, progressive particles, punctuation, text location, and so on, it is most explicitly signalled metadiscoursally by attitude verbs (e.g. agree, prefer), sentence adverbs (unfortunately, hopefully) and adjectives (appropriate, logical, remarkable).
• 自我提及指的是作者在文本中明确出现的程度,以第一人称代词和所有格形容词(我、我的、专属的、我们、我们的)的使用频率来衡量。所有写作都包含关于作者的信息,但通过第一人称进行个人投射的惯例…… 代词或许是自我表达最有力的手段(Ivanic,1998)。作者无法避免地会投射出一种自我印象,以及他们与论点、社群和读者之间的关系。作者是否明确提及自己,通常是作者有意识的选择,旨在采取特定的立场,并构建一种与语境相关的作者身份(Hyland,2001b)。
• Self-mention refers to the degree of explicit author presence in the text measured by the frequency of first-person pronouns and possessive adjectives (I, me, mine, exclusive we, our, ours). All writing carries information about the writer, but the convention of personal projection through first-person pronouns is perhaps the most powerful means of self-representation (Ivanic, 1998). Writers cannot avoid projecting an impression of themselves and how they stand in relation to their arguments, their community and their readers. The presence or absence of explicit author reference is generally a conscious choice by writers to adopt a particular stance and a contextually situated authorial identity (Hyland, 2001b).
• 互动标记是指明确与读者互动的修辞手法,其目的在于引导读者的注意力或将他们纳入话语参与者。因此,除了通过选择缓和语、增强语、自我提及和态度来营造权威、正直和可信的印象之外,作者还可以强调或弱化读者在文本中的存在感。由于情感修辞手法也可能具有关系性含义,因此在实践中,态度标记和互动标记往往难以区分。然而,后者主要关注读者的参与,其主要目的有两个:
• Engagement markers are devices that explicitly address readers, either to focus their attention or include them as discourse participants. So in addition to creating an impression of authority, integrity and credibility through choices of hedges, boosters, self-mentionand attitude, writers are able to either highlight or downplay the presence of their readers in the text. Because affective devices can also have relational implications, attitude and engagement markers are often difficult to distinguish in practice. The latter, however, focus on reader participation with two main purposes:
1. 首先承认需要充分满足读者对包容性和学科团结的期望,将他们视为论证的参与者,使用读者代词(你、你的、包容性的我们)和感叹词(顺便说一句,你可能会注意到)。
1. The first acknowledges the need to adequately meet readers’ expectations of inclusion and disciplinary solidarity, addressing them as participants in an argument with reader pronouns (you, your, inclusive we) and interjections (by the way, you may notice).
2. 第二个目的是通过修辞手法定位受众,在关键点将读者引入论述,预测可能的反对意见并引导他们做出特定的解读。这些功能主要通过提问、指令(主要是祈使句,例如“看”、“注意”、 “考虑”以及义务情态动词,例如“应该”、“必须”、“不得不”等)和对共同知识的引用来实现。
2. The second purpose involves rhetorically positioning the audience, pulling readers into the discourse at critical points, predicting possible objections and guiding them to particular interpretations. These functions are mainly performed by questions, directives (mainly imperatives such as see, note and consider and obligation modals such as should, must, have to, etc.) and references to shared knowledge.
在任何交流情境中,以读者为导向对于实现社会和修辞目标至关重要。读者始终可以选择重新解读命题信息并拒绝作者的观点,这意味着作者必须预见并回应可能出现的反对意见。元话语正是他们实现这一目标的方式,它利用了元话语所提供的修辞资源。为了凝聚支持、表达同僚情谊、解决难题并避免争端,互动方式的选择旨在满足读者对论证遵循传统文本模式和可预测方向的预期,使他们能够通过编码关系和组织材料的方式处理文本,从而获得他们认为恰当且令人信服的理解。互动方式的选择更直接地关注互动参与者,作者需要扮演一个符合社群规范的角色,并采用一种恰当的语气。在学术写作中,这主要涉及在谨慎和断言之间建立一种恰当的、符合学科规范的平衡,以及与数据、论点和受众之间建立适当的关系。
In any communicative situation an orientation to the reader is crucial in securing social and rhetorical objectives. Readers always have the option of re-interpreting propositional information and rejecting the writer’s viewpoint, which means that writers have to anticipate and respond to potential objections to their views. Metadiscourse is the way they do this, drawing on the rhetorical resources it provides to galvanize support, express collegiality, resolve difficulties and avoid disputes. Choices of interactive devices address readers’ expectations that an argument will conform to conventional text patterns and predictable directions, enabling them to process the text by encoding relationships and ordering material in ways that they will find appropriate and convincing. Interactional choices focus more directly on the participants of the interaction, with the writer adopting an acceptable persona and a tenor consistent with the norms of the community. In academic writing this mainly involves establishing a judicious, discipline-defined balance of tentativeness and assertion, and a suitable relationship to one’s data, arguments and audience.
3.4 举例说明:研究生写作中的元话语
3.4 An illustration: metadiscourse in postgraduate writing
为了阐明该模型并展示这些资源如何用于促进学术写作中有效的、特定社群的互动,我将简要描述一项关于研究生研究写作中元话语使用的研究(Hyland,2004a;Hyland 和 Tse,2004)。元话语在这一高级写作阶段尤为重要,因为它代表了新手作者尝试以对特定学科社群有意义且恰当的方式处理命题信息。一方面,元话语揭示了作者对其读者处理能力、语境资源和互文经验的假设;另一方面,也揭示了作者通过展现其数据、论点和受众之间的恰当关系来塑造恰当的学科形象的能力。
To illustrate the model and show how these resources are used to facilitate effective, community-specific interactions in academic writing, I will briefly describe a study of metadiscourse use in graduate research writing (Hyland, 2004a; Hyland and Tse, 2004). Metadiscourse is particularly important at this advanced level of writing as it represents novice writers’ attempts to negotiate propositional information in ways that are meaningful and appropriate to a particular disciplinary community. On the one hand, metadiscourse reveals writers’ assumptions about the processing abilities, contextual resources and intertextual experiences of their readers, and, on the other, writers’ abilities to adopt an appropriate disciplinary persona by revealing a suitable relationship to their data, arguments and audience.
元话语在高级研究生写作中的重要性体现在以下事实:在香港英语学习者撰写的240篇硕士和博士论文的四百万词语料库中,出现了超过18.4万个元话语案例。这意味着平均每21个词中就出现一个元话语。需要注意的是,由于元话语通常以从句或句子的形式呈现,这些标准化数据并非旨在反映语料库中元话语的总量,而仅仅是为了便于比较不同的模式。本文分析了不同体裁和学科子语料库中元话语的出现情况。我们使用语料库检索程序在文本中搜索了约300个潜在的元话语表达形式,并对大量样本进行了人工分析,以确保每个表达形式都具有元话语的功能。表3.3显示,作者使用的互动形式略多于非互动形式,缓和语和过渡语是最常用的语用手法,其次是参与标记和证据性标记。
The importance of metadiscourse in advanced postgraduate writing is shown by the fact that there were over 184,000 cases in a four million word corpus of 240 Masters and doctoral dissertations written by EFL students in Hong Kong. This is a frequency of one every 21 words. It is important to note that because metadiscourse often has clause or sentence length realization these standardized figures are not meant to convey the overall amount of metadiscourse in the corpus, but simply to allow comparison of different patterns of occurrence of metadiscourse in different genre and disciplinary sub-corpora. A concordance program searched the texts for some 300 potential expressions of metadiscourse and a large sample was analysed manually to ensure each was functioning as metadiscourse. Table 3.3 shows that writers used slightly more interactive than interactional forms, and that hedges and transitions were the most frequent devices followed by engagement markers and evidentials.
与已发表学术写作中的其他常见特征相比,这些频率的意义或许更容易理解。例如,一项基于大型语料库的《朗文语法》研究显示,被动语态的出现频率为每千词18.5例,过去式动词的出现频率为每千词20例(Biber et al., 1999)。因此,这些元话语信号是学术散文的重要组成部分。
The significance of these frequencies are perhaps more clearly understood when compared to other common features of published academic writing. A large corpus-based study for the Longman Grammar, for instance, gave figures of 18.5 cases per thousand words for passive voice constructions and 20 per thousand words for past tense verbs (Biber et al., 1999). These metadiscourse signals are therefore an important component of academic prose.
学术论证中频繁使用过渡词(代表话语内部的衔接)显然是一个重要特征。过渡词占语料库中所有元话语的五分之一以上,表明作者重视读者能够清晰地理解其论证思路。然而,最常见的子类别是缓和语,占所有互动用法的41%。这一频率反映了在学术写作中区分事实与观点至关重要,以及作者需要以能够识别潜在不同观点的方式来评估其论断。事实上,“ may”、“could”和“ would”是语料库中出现频率最高的词条之一,体现了作者在提出论点时既谨慎又尊重读者/考官观点的态度。总而言之,这些学生对元话语的运用表明,他们主要关注的是如何清晰且谨慎地表达论点。
The high use of transitions, representing internal connections in the discourse, is clearly an important feature of academic argument. Transitions represent over a fifth of all metadiscourse in the corpus, demonstrating writers’ concerns that readers are able to recover their reasoning unambiguously. The most frequent sub-category, however, is hedges, which constitute 41 per cent of all interactional uses. This frequency reflects the critical importance of distinguishing fact from opinion in academic writing and the need for writers to evaluate their assertions in ways which recognize potential alternative voices. In fact, may, could and would were among the highest frequency items in the corpus, presenting claims with both caution and deference to the views of readers/examiners. In general, then, the use these students made of metadiscourse demonstrates a principal concern with expressing arguments explicitly and with due circumspection.
我们还可以看到,元话语的使用在两个学位论文语料库中差异显著。硕士论文中互动式和交互式元话语形式总体上较为平衡,互动式形式略多于交互式形式;而博士论文中互动式形式的使用则多出10%。然而,博士论文中元话语的使用频率远高于硕士论文,占所有案例的73%。这可能与博士论文的篇幅通常是硕士论文的两倍有关,因此学生需要更多地使用互动工具来构建更为复杂的论证。然而,更高的频率博士学位似乎也代表了作者们更加坚定和成熟的尝试,旨在与读者互动,并将自己展现为精通各自学科的意识形态和实践的、称职且可信的学者。
We can also see that the use of metadiscourse varied considerably across the two corpora of dissertations. There was an overall balance between interactive and interactional forms in the Masters theses, with slightly more interactional uses, while the doctoral texts contained 10 per cent more interactive forms. The PhD dissertations, however, contained far more metadiscourse, with 73 per cent of all cases. This may have something to do with the fact that PhD theses are often twice as long as the Masters dissertations, so students have to make greater use of interactive devices to structure more discursively complex arguments. However, the higher frequencies in the PhDs also seem to represent more determined and sophisticated attempts by writers to engage with readers and to present themselves as competent and credible academics immersed in the ideologies and practices of their disciplines.
表 3.3研究生论文中的元话语(每 10,000 字)
Table 3.3 Metadiscourse in postgraduate dissertations (per 10,000 words)
例如,在互动类文章中,博士生作者对证据的使用远多于本科生,其互文性引用数量是本科生的四倍以上。引用在说服的社会语境中至关重要,它不仅有助于论证观点的合理性,展现作者立场的新颖性,还能让学生展现对特定社群的忠诚,建立可信的作者身份,表明他们对相关文献以及重视学科研究传统的精神的熟悉程度。另一方面,硕士论文的作者不太可能如此在意建立学术资历。他们的论文不仅篇幅更短,而且完成速度也更快,此外还要完成大量的课程作业。许多硕士生通常是兼职学习,他们更期待的是重返职场,而不是继续从事学术研究。因此,他们对文献的阅读以及展现自身文献熟悉程度的渴望可能并不那么迫切。
In the interactive categories, for instance, doctoral writers made far more use of evidentials, with over four times the number of intertextual references. Citation is central to the social context of persuasion, as it helps provide justification for arguments and demonstrates the novelty of the writer’s position, but it also allows students to display an allegiance to a particular community and establish a credible writer identity, showing a familiarity with the literature and with an ethos that values a disciplinary research tradition. The writers of Masters theses, on the other hand, are unlikely to be so concerned about establishing their academic credentials. Not only are their texts much shorter, but they are also completed fairly quickly and in addition to substantial coursework, while many of their writers are often studying part-time and are looking forward to returning to their professional workplaces rather than a career in academia. Consequently their reading of the literature, and their desire to demonstrate their familiarity with it, may be less pressing.
同样,博士生每万字使用的互动元话语标记数量远高于其他学生,尤其是参与标记和自我提及的使用频率更高。自我提及是作者展现学术权威身份、获得研究成果认可的关键途径。尽管许多学生被教导要避免使用第一人称,但第一人称在调和作者的论证与其话语社群之间的关系方面发挥着至关重要的互动作用,使作者能够塑造其既是学科服务者又是创造性创造者的身份(Hyland,2001b)。作者选择在话语中以元话语方式表明自身存在的时刻,往往是他们最能宣传自身及其个人贡献的时刻。参与性特征在博士论文中也更为常见,特别是祈使句和义务情态动词,它们引导读者进行某种思考或行动。这些都是将读者引入文本、使其成为对话参与者的重要手段。
Similarly, doctoral students employed far more interactional metadiscourse markers per 10,000 words, with much higher use of engagement markers and self-mentions. Self-mention is a key way in which writers are able to promote a competent scholarly identity and gain approval for their research claims. While many students are taught to shun the use of first person, it plays a crucial interactional role in mediating the relationship between writers’ arguments and their discourse communities, allowing them to create an identity as both disciplinary servant and creative originator (Hyland, 2001b). The points at which writers choose to metadiscoursally announce their presence in the discourse tend to be those where they are best able to promote themselves and their individual contributions. Engagement features are also far more common in the doctoral texts, particularly imperatives and obligation modals which direct the reader to some thought or action. These are important means of bringing readers into the text as participants in an unfolding dialogue.
此外还有相当多的不同学科领域对元话语的使用存在差异。语料库包含等量样本。 表3.4显示,来自自然科学和社会科学六个学科的学位论文数量表明,话语性更强的“软性”领域总体上使用了更多的元话语,并且几乎占到了互动特征的三分之二。软性领域中缓和语的使用频率是其他领域的两倍多,自我提及的频率几乎是其他领域的四倍(未按文本长度进行标准化)。
There were also substantial variations in the use of metadiscourse across disciplinary communities. The corpus contained equal numbers of dissertations from six disciplines in the natural and social sciences, and Table 3.4 shows that the more discursive ‘soft’ fields employed more metadiscourse overall and almost two-thirds of the interactional features. Hedges were well over twice as common in the soft fields and self-mentions almost four times more frequent (before norming for text length).
表3.4按学科划分的学位论文中每万字的元话语数量
Table 3.4 Metadiscourse in dissertations by discipline per 10,000 words
这些数据反映了个人诠释在人文社科领域扮演着更为重要的角色。在这些领域,诠释通常更为明确,而建立证据的条件则不如自然科学领域可靠(例如,Hyland,2000)。处理人类受试者和数据本身就更具不确定性,作者无法像在自然科学领域那样广泛地依赖经验论证或可靠的定量方法。因此,说服力更多地取决于论证的有效性以及语言在与读者建立联系、引导读者、说服读者并将读者纳入论证过程中的作用。
The figures reflect the greater role that explicit personal interpretation plays in the humanities and social sciences where interpretations are typically more explicit and the conditions for establishing proof less reliable than in the hard fields (e.g. Hyland, 2000). Dealing with human subjects and data is altogether more uncertain and writers are unable to draw to the same extent on empirical demonstration or trusted quantitative methods. Consequently persuasion lies far more in the efficacy of argument and the role of language to build a relationship with readers, positioning them, persuading them, and including them in the argument.
总体而言,这些结果表明元话语与其所处的社会修辞语境密切相关。由于元话语使文本生产者能够构建和组织命题、定位和吸引读者、表达立场并与对话者建立联系,因此它为文本与文化之间搭建了桥梁。元话语通过揭示文本目标受众的某些期望和理解,有助于我们了解修辞语境。由于元话语是作者构建读者的方式,因此对其进行研究使我们能够探索作者对其目标社群的认知。反过来,这不仅有助于揭示读者偏好的话语模式,还有助于了解他们的社会实践、价值观和思维方式。
Overall, these results suggest the extent to which metadiscourse is related to the socio-rhetorical contexts in which it is used. Because it enables text producers to frame and organize propositions, to position and engage readers, and to express a stance and enter relationships with their interlocutors, metadiscourse provides a link between texts and cultures. It thus helps to characterize the rhetorical context by revealing some of the expectations and understandings of the audience for whom a text was written. Because metadiscourse is the way writers construe their readers, its study enables us to explore writers’ perceptions of the communities for which they are writing. This, in turn, helps to reveal not only readers’ preferred discourse patterns, but also something of their social practices, values and ways of thinking.
3.5 描述的局限性
3.5 The limits of description
应当谨记,任何分类或描述都只能部分地呈现模糊的现实。这部分是因为元话语研究仅处理文本中可以清晰识别的显性手法(见上文2.6)。对显性表面特征的关注,在某种程度上是出于识别的实际目的,但同样重要的是,这种直白性体现了作者有意识地选择在话语中表明自身存在。因此,直白性与作者对自身和读者的认知密切相关:它标志着作者对文本创作过程的反思,而这种反思也会在读者心中引发类似的意识。
It should be borne in mind that no taxonomy or description will ever be able to do more than partially represent a fuzzy reality. This is partly because metadiscourse studies deal only with explicit devices which can be clearly identified in the text (see 2.6 above). The decision to focus on overt surface features is due, to some extent, to the practical purposes of identification, but equally importantly, this explicitness represents the writer’s conscious choice to indicate a presence in the discourse. Explicitness is therefore related to the author’s awareness of both self and audience: it signals a point where the writer has reflected on the process of text creation, and this induces a similar awareness in the reader.
然而,显然,将作者的存在简单地二分为高显性和低显性并不能充分体现作者对文本的干预,因为任何文本选择都是这种存在感的非显性信号。但元话语分析只能起到指示作用,而无法面面俱到。它有助于我们理解作者自我意识的程度,了解作者在多大程度上能够将文本视为写作的成果(而非对现实世界的研究或理论),并比较不同体裁、文化和社群的作者在创作文本时运用这种意识的方式。
Clearly, however, dichotomizing authorial presence into high and low explicitness does not do full justice to the writer’s intervention in a text, as any textual choice is a non-explicit signal of such a presence. But metadiscourse analysis is indicative rather than comprehensive. It helps us to understand the extent of authorial self-awareness, how far writers are able to see their texts as an outcome of writing (rather than as a study or theory in the world), and to compare the ways writers employ this awareness in crafting texts in different genres, cultures and communities.
然而,这种描述的另一个局限性在于,将离散的类别强加于实际语言使用的流动性之上,不可避免地掩盖了其多功能性,模糊了在“非此即彼”的解读中特定修辞手法的多重含义。有效的写作意味着预判读者的需求,既要让他们理解阐述,又要让他们参与对话。有时,修辞手法会同时发挥这两种功能,因此类别之间必然存在一些重叠。正如我们所见,元话语功能不仅经常与命题功能混淆,而且像“但是”和“然而”这样的对比连接词,虽然主要通过组织话语发挥互动作用,但也可以通过将肯定判断转向否定判断(Hood和Forey,1999)或缓和反驳论点的引入(Barton,1995)来发挥互动作用。同样,语码注释不仅揭示了作者对共同主题的评估,也暗示了作者相对于读者的权威立场。
A further limitation of the description, however, is the fact that the imposition of discrete categories on the fluidity of actual language use inevitably conceals its multifunctionality, blurring simultaneous meanings in an ‘all-or-nothing’ interpretation of how particular devices are used. Writing effectively means anticipating the needs of readers, both to follow an exposition and to participate in a dialogue, and occasionally devices are used to perform both functions at once so there will inevitably be some overlap between categories. Not only are metadiscourse functions often confused with propositiononal ones, as we have seen, but contrastive connectives such as but and however, which principally play interactive roles by organizing the discourse, can also act interactionally by shifting from a positive to a negative judgement (Hood and Forey, 1999) or by mitigating the introduction of a counter-claim (Barton, 1995). Similarly, code glosses not only reveal the writer’s assessments of shared subject matter, but also imply an authoritative position vis-à-vis the reader.
因此,分类方案只能近似地反映自然语言使用的复杂性。虽然它可能无法提供关于作者意图的确凿证据,但它是揭示文本中蕴含含义的有效手段,或许还能揭示作者对其所探讨议题以及受众理解方式的一些假设。有效互动意味着预见需求。读者既要理解阐述内容,又要参与对话;因此,使用许多设备同时执行这两个功能也就不足为奇了。
A classification scheme can therefore only approximate the complexity of natural language use. But while it may give no firm evidence about author intentions, it is a useful means of revealing the meanings available in the text and perhaps some of the assumptions writers hold about the issues they address and the ways they see their audiences. Interacting effectively means anticipating the needs of readers, both to follow an exposition and to participate in a dialogue; it should be no surprise that many devices are used to perform both functions at once.
3.6 总结与结论
3.6 Summary and conclusions
本章提出了一个基于元话语主要功能(即协商文本中的互动)的元话语模型。我的论点本质上是,元话语提供了一种理解作者如何运用人际资源来连贯地组织文本,并传达其个性、可信度、读者敏感性以及与信息的关系的方法。元话语文献中常常存在一种倾向,即关注表面形式和作者所创造的效果,尤其是在教学材料中,但元话语不应被视为一种作者可以随意改变的独立文体手段。我希望本文描述的模型能够克服许多此类局限性,并提供一种全面且务实的方法来研究文本中的人际资源。
This chapter has presented a model of metadiscourse based on its primary function of negotiating interactions in texts. Essentially my argument has been that metadiscourse offers a way of understanding the interpersonal resources writers use to organize texts coherently and to convey their personality, credibility, reader sensitivity and relationship to the message. There is often a tendency in the metadiscourse literature to focus on surface forms and the effects created by writers, especially in pedagogic materials, but metadiscourse should not be seen as an independent stylistic device which authors can vary at will. I hope the model described here overcomes many of these limitations and offers a comprehensive and pragmatically grounded means of investigating the interpersonal resources in texts.
元话语的重要性在于其潜在的修辞动力,这种动力将其与所处的语境联系起来。在我们大多数重要的交流中,例如我们出于学术或专业目的而进行的写作,互动都涉及“定位”,即在文本讨论的问题以及其他持有相同观点的人面前,采取某种立场。为了争取发言权,并使我们的观点得到认真对待,我们必须展现出作为社群内部成员的能力。这种能力至少部分是通过建立恰当的作者-读者对话来实现的,这种对话既能定位我们的论点,也能定位我们自身,从而建立人与人之间以及人与思想之间的联系。因此,成功的写作取决于作者对共享社群语境的投射。元话语强调,为了实现目标,作者会通过修辞选择来构建一个可识别的社会世界,从而进行人际协商,并在其作品的重要性、原创性和可信度与读者的信念和期望之间取得平衡。
The importance of metadiscourse lies in its underlying rhetorical dynamics which relate it to the contexts in which it occurs. In most of our communications that matter, such as the writing we do for academic or professional purposes, interaction involves ‘positioning’, or adopting a point of view in relation both to the issues discussed in the text and to others who hold views on those issues. In claiming a right to be heard, and to have our views taken seriously, we must display a competence as community insiders. This competence is, at least in part, achieved through establishing an appropriate writer–reader dialogue which situates both our arguments and ourselves, establishing relationships between people, and between people and ideas. Successful writing thus depends on the individual writer’s projection of a shared community context. Metadiscourse emphasizes that in pursuing their goals, writers seek to create a recognizable social world through rhetorical choices which allow them to conduct interpersonal negotiations and balance claims for the significance, originality and plausibility of their work against the convictions and expectations of their readers.
对分析者而言,元话语是一个有用的概念,因为它揭示了作者在文本中的存在及其对读者的认知。它是一种特殊的语篇形式,使作者能够与对话者互动并影响他们,帮助他们以一种可信且令人信服的方式解读和评价文本。因此,元话语与特定社群的规范和期望密切相关,因为作者需要提供尽可能多的线索,以确保读者理解并接受其命题内容。由此可见,元话语概念的核心在于,它必须置于影响其使用并赋予其意义的语境之中。这些功能和联系将在后续章节中详细阐述。
To the analyst, metadiscourse is a useful concept because it reveals the presence of the author in the text and his or her awareness of a reader. It is a specialized form of discourse which allows writers to engage with and influence their interlocutors and assist them to interpret and evaluate the text in a way they will see as credible and convincing. As a result, metadiscourse is intimately linked to the norms and expectations of particular communities through the writer’s need to supply as many cues as necessary to secure the reader’s understanding and acceptance of the propositional content. Central to this conception of metadiscourse, then, is the view that it must be located in the settings which influence its use and give it meaning. These functions and connections will be elaborated in the following chapters.
在探讨了元话语的基本特征并提出了该概念的互动视角之后,我将详细阐述该术语的一些主要应用,并说明它对话语研究的意义。本部分的四章将考察一系列涉及修辞、体裁、文化和社群等关键领域的研究,以阐明元话语研究是如何开展的,以及它对语言使用研究的贡献。
Having considered the basic features of metadiscourse and proposed an interactional view of the concept, I will now elaborate some of the main applications of the term and illustrate what it has to offer the study of discourse. The four chapters in this section look at a range of studies concerned with the key areas of rhetoric, genre, culture and community to illuminate how metadiscourse research has been undertaken and what it contributes to the study of language in use.
正如我之前提到的,元话语与说话者和作者的目的密切相关。它使他们能够将自身的兴趣、观点和评价融入文本,并出于对读者可能反应的考量而对观点进行加工和完善。由于元话语有助于作者吸引读者、建立联系、告知读者不同的确定性并引导他们对文本的理解,因此它具有说服力。事实上,元话语有助于构建自古希腊以来就一直是说服性话语特征的理性、可信和情感诉求。
Metadiscourse is, as I noted earlier, closely associated with the purposes of speakers and writers. It allows them to project their interests, opinions and evaluations into a text and to process and refine ideas out of concern for readers’ possible reactions. Because it helps writers to engage their audience, signal relationships, apprise readers of varying certainty and guide their understanding of a text, metadiscourse pursues persuasive objectives. In fact, metadiscourse contributes to the rational, credible and affective appeals which have characterized persuasive discourse since the time of ancient Greece:
• 它将思想和论据明确联系起来,从而促进理性诉求;
• it promotes rational appeals when it explicitly links ideas and arguments;
• 它与可信度诉求有关,即涉及作者的权威性和能力;
• it relates to credibility appeals where it concerns the writer’s authority and competence;
• 它通过表达对读者观点的尊重或表明信息与受众有直接关联来诉诸情感。
• it addresses affective appeals when it signals respect for the readers’ viewpoint or that the message has direct relevance to the audience.
在本章中,我将探讨元话语与修辞之间的关系,这里所说的修辞并非指当代意义上的话语层面的组织模式,而是指说服策略,主要关注两种截然不同的文本类型——达尔文的《物种起源》和公司年度报告——中古典修辞的分类。
In this chapter I look at the relationship between metadiscourse and rhetoric, understood here not in its contemporary sense as discourse level organizational patterns, but as strategies of persuasion, focusing mainly on the categorizations of classical rhetoric in two very different kinds of text: Darwin’s Origin of Species and company annual reports.
4.1 修辞的概念
4.1 The concept of rhetoric
“修辞”一词在其漫长的历史中曾有过不同的含义,一度被认为是所有学术科目中最重要的一门(Ong,1983)。本质上,修辞是说服的艺术;它涉及对那些无法进行正式论证的事项的论证。在过去,修辞的概念往往带有负面含义,暗示着不择手段的操纵和胁迫,但如今,它已成为文本分析和书面沟通领域的核心概念。正如Mauranen(1993b:20)所观察到的:
The term rhetoric has had different meanings in its long history and at one time referred to one of the most important of all academic subjects (Ong, 1983). Essentially, rhetoric is the art of persuasion; it concerns arguments on matters about which there can be no formal proof. In the recent past the notion of rhetoric tended to carry negative connotations, suggesting unscrupulous manipulation and coercion, but today it is a central concept to those working in text analysis and written communication. As Mauranen (1993b: 20) observes:
修辞学的研究不仅被重新发现,成为提高口头表达效率的手段,而且成为不同学科可以用来揭示话语某些方面的分析工具。
The study of rhetoric has been rediscovered not only as a means of improving efficiency in verbal presentation, but as an analytical tool that can be used by different disciplines for uncovering certain aspects of discourse.
古典修辞学的概念在当代口头交流研究和当前的写作理论中尤为重要,这两者都带有亚里士多德所建立的基本见解和说服原则的痕迹(Erickson,1974;Furley 和 Nehamas,1994)。
The concepts of classical rhetoric are particularly important in much contemporary research into oral communication and in current theories of composition, both of which carry traces of the basic insights and principles of persuasion established by Aristotle (Erickson, 1974; Furley and Nehamas, 1994).
亚里士多德的《修辞学 》 是古代最受推崇、流传至今的著作之一,它系统地阐释了说服的本质,并将其置于当时的演说实践中进行考察。在本书开篇,亚里士多德便将修辞与辩证法中更具思辨性的论证形式区分开来,并将其定义为寻找有效论证方法的艺术。由于人们只有在确信某事为真后才会被说服,因此修辞的本质在于论证某事如何为真,或如何证明其为真。他认为,说服必须根据沟通的三大要素——说话者、听话者和论证内容——的差异进行调整。此外,他还指出,为了有效地进行论证,说话者必须关注三个方面:说服的手段、语言以及论证的组织结构。
Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1 is one of the most respected and enduring works of antiquity, an attempt to systematically understand persuasion and ground it in the practices of the oratory of the day. At the outset of this work, Aristotle distinguishes rhetoric from the more speculative form of argument of dialectic, defining it as the art of finding available ways of establishing persuasive proof. Since people are not persuaded until they are convinced that something is true, the rhetoric involves demonstrating how something is true or how it can be shown to be true. He argued that persuasion has to be adjusted for differences in the three major components of communication: the speaker, the hearer and the content of the argument. Further, he suggested that to make an argument speakers had to attend to three points: the means of persuasion, language and the organization of the argument.
这三个要素几乎是现代所有写作指导和作文教材的核心,重点在于提出论点的策略、精心选择……语言形式和主题,以及对话语体裁结构的关注。然而,元话语研究最感兴趣的是三种说服手段:
These three elements have been central to almost all writing instruction and composition textbooks in modern times, with emphasis placed on strategies for making claims, careful choice of language forms and themes, and attention to the genre structure of the discourse. Of greatest interest to metadiscourse research, however, are the three means of persuasion:
• 人格魅力——一个人品格所具有的个人吸引力;
• Ethos – the personal appeal of one’s character;
• 情感诉求——诉诸情感;
• Pathos – the appeal to emotions;
• 逻辑论证——诉诸理性。
• Logos – the appeal to reason.
虽然可以分别分析这三种诉求,但它们往往结合起来才能达到说服的目的。
Although they can be analysed separately, these three appeals tend to work in combination towards persuasive ends.
• 人格特质(Ethos)指的是说话者的品格及其可信度。作者在作品被聆听或阅读之前就可能拥有可信度,因此它部分与声誉、专业知识、名望等相关,但他们必须在话语过程中不断重塑这种可信度。现代观点认为,人格特质并非一种静态的品质或个人属性,而是作者与读者通过文本互动所产生的动态诠释结果(例如,Hauser,1986)。
• Ethos concerns the character of the speaker and his or her credibility. Authors can have credibility prior to their text being heard or read, so it is partly related to reputation, expertise, celebrity and so on, but they must always re-establish it during the course of the discourse itself. Modern interpretations suggest that we do not see ethos as a static quality or as an attribute of a person, but as the dynamic and interpretive result of the interaction between the writer and reader through the text itself (e.g. Hauser, 1986).
• 情感诉求关注的是情感诉求,它关注的是听众的特征,而不是演讲者的特征,例如听众的教育水平、种族、性别、年龄、兴趣、背景知识、群体成员身份等等。
• Pathos concerns affective appeals and focuses on the characteristics of the audience rather than the speaker, considering its education level, ethnicity, gender, age, interests, background knowledge, group membership and so on.
• 逻辑指的是演讲本身,包括演讲的结构、长度、复杂性、证据和论据的类型等等。
• Logos concerns the speech itself, its arrangement, length, complexity, types of evidence and arguments and so on.
这三个特点都同样重要,尽管在不同的情况下,有些特点可能会变得更加重要。
All three of these characteristics are equally important, although some may become more important in different situations.
将这些说服手段与元话语联系起来,我们可以看到,元话语通过明确连接论证要素来展现逻辑(Logos)的理性诉求;通过提及作者的权威和能力来传递信誉(Ethos) ;并通过表明尊重读者观点或信息与受众直接相关来诉诸情感(Pathos)。本章将探讨元话语如何在科学和商业文本中实现这些修辞要素。
Relating these means of persuasion to metadiscourse, we can see metadiscourse projecting the rational appeals of Logos when it explicitly links elements of the argument; it conveys an Ethos where it refers to the writer’s authority and competence; and it relates to Pathos when it signals respect for the readers’ viewpoint or that the message has direct relevance to the audience. In this chapter I will explore how metadiscourse realizes these rhetorical elements in scientific and business texts.
4.2 学术话语与修辞
4.2 Academic discourse and rhetoric
人们普遍认为修辞与学术论述无关。学术散文通常被视为一种独特的论证形式,因为它依赖于对绝对真理、经验证据或完美逻辑的论证。其说服力被认为根植于理性,并以严谨的方法论、客观的观察和深入的思考为基础。换言之,学术写作代表了“真理”的论述(Lemke,1995:178)。它客观地描述了自然界和人类世界的真实面貌,而这反过来又使其区别于社会偶然性。因此,我们倾向于将这种论证形式视为可靠知识的保证,并赋予其文化权威,而不会像看待政治和商业中的党派修辞那样抱持犬儒主义的态度。
There is a widespread belief that rhetoric is irrelevant to academic discourse. Academic prose is often perceived a s a unique form of argument because it depends upon the demonstration of absolute truth, empirical evidence or flawless logic. Its persuasive potency is seen as grounded in rationality and based on exacting methodologies, dispassionate observation and informed reflection. Academic writing, in other words, represents the discourses of ‘Truth’ (Lemke, 1995: 178). It offers an objective description of what the natural and human worlds are actually like and this, in turn, serves to distinguish it from the socially contingent. We tend, therefore, to see this form of persuasion as a guarantee of reliable knowledge, and we invest it with cultural authority, free of the cynicism with which we view the partisan rhetoric of politics and commerce.
然而,在过去十年左右的时间里,学术写作逐渐失去了其作为客观、冷漠、非人格化的论述形式的传统标签,转而被视为一种涉及作者与读者互动的说服性努力。早在25年前,像卡罗琳·米勒这样的修辞学家就认为,科学写作并非“对绝对现实的揭示,而是对经验的一种说服性诠释”,她在此文中对此论点进行了有力的论证:
However, over the last decade or so academic writing has gradually lost its traditional tag as an objective, faceless and impersonal form of discourse and come to be seen as a persuasive endeavour involving interaction between writer and readers. Even 25 years ago, rhetoricians such as Carolyn Miller were arguing that scientific writing was not ‘the revelation of absolute reality but a persuasive version of experience’, a case she argues cogently here:
科学……并非直接关注物质事物,而是关注人类构建的概念、符号和论证。科学验证依赖于隐含的概念理论,这些理论可以说“论证”了一种看待世界的方式。科学验证需要说服受众,让他们相信所“观察到”的现象是可重复的且相关的。从根本上说,科学是一种修辞活动。
Science . . . is not concerned directly with material things, but with these human constructions, with symbols and arguments. Scientific verification relies on tacit conceptual theories, which may be said to ‘argue for’ a way of seeing the world. Scientific verification requires the persuasion of an audience that what has been ‘observed’ is replicable and relevant. Science is, through and through, a rhetorical endeavour.
(Miller,1979:616)
(Miller, 1979: 616)
科学面临的问题是,归纳法和证伪法——科学论证的关键支柱——本身都建立在可靠性较低的认知方式之上(Hyland,2002a)。事实上,解释总是依赖于科学家在解决问题时所预设的理论假设(Kuhn,1970)。这意味着观察结果与它们所预设的理论一样容易出错,因此无法提供可靠的解释。接受科学主张需要坚实的基础。正如物理学家斯蒂芬·霍金(1993:44)所指出的,一个理论或许可以解释一系列观测结果,但“除此之外,询问它是否符合现实毫无意义,因为我们并不知道脱离理论的现实是什么”。所有报告都发生在特定的语境中,并与一个能够以有意义的模式拟合观测和数据的理论相关联,因此不存在一个可靠的观测基础来检验任何理论(Chalmers,1978)。
The problem for science is that both inductivism and falsification, the key planks of scientific proof, are themselves based on less reliable forms of knowing (Hyland, 2002a). Interpretation, in fact, always depends on the theoretical assumptions which the scientist brings to a problem (Kuhn, 1970). This means that observations are as fallible as the theories they presuppose, and so cannot provide a solid foundation for the acceptance of scientific claims. As the physicist Stephen Hawking (1993: 44) notes, a theory may describe a range of observations, but ‘beyond that it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory’. All reporting occurs within a context and in relation to a theory which fits observation and data in meaningful patterns, so there is no secure observational base upon which any theories can be tested (Chalmers, 1978).
因此,文本不能被视为“世界真实面貌”的精确再现,因为这种再现总是经过选择和突出处理的。科学论证依赖于超越事实、超越逻辑的论证,关注的是概率而非事实。讨论研究结果和理论并非揭示绝对的证据,而是运用特定的说服方式(Hyland,2005a)。换言之,学者并非仅仅创作看似合理地反映外部现实的文本,而是运用语言来认知、构建和协商社会关系。这涉及元话语,以及构建一个具有说服力、观点引人入胜且合情合理的作者形象。作者力求通过与读者建立联系、评估自身作品并承认不同的观点,来展现自身及其作品的可信度,因此,控制文本中个人化的程度对于构建令人信服的论证至关重要。简而言之,所有成功的学术文本都依赖于元话语来展现作者对读者及其后果的认识。
Text cannot therefore be seen as accurate representations of ‘what the world is really like’ because this representation is always filtered through acts of selection and foregrounding. Scientific proof depends on extra-factual, extra-logical arguments concerned with probabilities rather than facts. To discuss results and theories is not to reveal absolute proof, it is to engage in particular forms of persuasion (Hyland, 2005a). In other words, academics do not simply produce texts that plausibly represent an external reality, but use language to acknowledge, construct and negotiate social relations. This involves metadiscourse and the rhetorical construction of a convincing writer with something interesting and plausible to say. Writers seek to offer a credible representation of themselves and their work by claiming solidarity with readers, evaluating their material and acknowledging alternative views, so that controlling the level of personality in a text becomes central to building a convincing argument. Put succinctly, every successful academic text relies on metadiscourse to display the writer’s awareness of both its readers and its consequences.
因此,学术写作是一种社会过程的参与,文本的产出反映了为吸引同行并说服他们接受所提出的观点而构建的方法论、论证和修辞策略。因此,学术话语必须被视为运用各种手段来增强说服力,从而恰当地构建学科论述的过程。营造一个令人信服的读者环境需要运用学科和体裁特定的惯例,使得“发表的论文成为作者和目标读者共同创作的多层次混合体”(Knorr-Cetina,1981:106)。其中最重要的莫过于元话语标记。
Academic writing is therefore an engagement in a social process, where the production of texts reflects the methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made. Academic discourse must therefore be seen as the use of various devices to enhance persuasiveness in order to appropriately frame disciplinary submissions. Creating a convincing reader-environment thus involves deploying disciplinary and genre-specific conventions such that ‘the published paper is a multilayered hybrid co-produced by the authors and by members of the audience to which it is directed’ (Knorr-Cetina, 1981: 106). Among the most important of these are metadiscourse markers.
4.3 元话语、伦理与《物种起源》
4.3 Metadiscourse, ethos and The Origin of Species
构建成功的学术论证的一个要素是信誉(ethos),即读者赋予作者的可信度。克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思(1989)认为,元话语提供了一种看待作者与读者互动的新视角,拓展了我们对信誉的理解。他们探讨了元话语在一部极具声望和影响力的科学著作《物种起源》 中的运用。作者着重分析了互动特征(他们称之为“人际元话语”),并借鉴范德·科普尔(1985)在第二章中描述的框架,追溯了达尔文在这部著作中对情 态标记(缓和语气词和加强语气词) 、态度标记和评论的运用。克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思认为,这些要素揭示了达尔文对可能真理的评估、他对材料的情感反应以及他试图与读者展开对话的努力。他们在《物种起源》的第一章(构建全书框架)和第四章(阐述自然选择理论)中发现了890处此类元话语。
One element of establishing a successful academic argument is ethos, the perceived credibility that readers grant to writers. Crismore and Farnsworth (1989) argue that metadiscourse provides a perspective on author–reader interactions that broadens our view of ethos. They explore how it was used in a highly prestigious and influential scientific text, The Origin of Species. 2 Concentrating on interactional features (what they call ‘interpersonal metadiscourse’), the authors trace Darwin’s use of modality markers (hedges and boosters), attitude markers and commentary in this text, drawing on Vande Kopple’s (1985) schema described in Chapter 2. Crismore and Farnsworth argue that these items reveal Darwin’s assessments of likely truth, his affective responses to material, and his attempts to engage readers in a dialogue. They found 890 instances of such metadiscourse in Chapter One of The Origin of Species, which sets out a framework for the book, and Chapter Four, which presents the theory of natural selection.
i. 情态标记:缓和语气
i. Modality markers: Hedges
研究发现,缓和语和加强语合计占所有元话语的 83%,其中缓和语的使用频率是加强语的四倍。克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思认为,这些模式揭示了一种基于对有限知识的正当主张的诉求而形成的理念:
Together, hedges and boosters accounted for 83 per cent of all metadiscourse in the study, with hedges being four times more frequent. For Crismore and Farnsworth these patterns reveal the creation of an ethos based on a plea for the just claims of limited knowledge:
我们认为达尔文的精神气质是由以下几个方面构成的:谨慎小心的博物学家;谦逊有礼的博物学家;不咄咄逼人、善于表达观点的人;值得信赖的专家,充满好奇心的孩童般的人——简而言之,就是不具威胁性、令人喜爱的达尔文先生。
We believe that Darwin’s ethos is constructed from aspects taken from the following: the tentative, cautious, naturalist; the modest, gentleman naturalist; the non-assertive, tactful presenter of ideas; the trustworthy expert, the childlike human being given to wonder – in short, the nonthreatening, endearing Mr Darwin.
(Crismore 和 Farnsworth,1989:101)
(Crismore an d Farnsworth, 1989: 101)
因此,达尔文的语气是一位谨慎的科学家,他使用缓和语来表明其论断的相对不确定性,并体现了一位理性学者的气质。缓和语的集中使用表明这位科学家精心组织事实,并要求读者思考其论点的证据,这种修辞策略由图尔敏(Toulmin,1958)讨论,并在现代学术话语中被广泛运用(Hyland,1998a)。含糊其辞的表达方式暗示某个陈述是基于作者的解释而非确凿的知识,这一点在达尔文涉足概率领域时尤为明显。在这个例子中,他将当前关于畜牧业的证据推演到过去,这种论证显然包含大量的推测:
Darwin’s voice is therefore that of the cautious scientist, using hedges to indicate the relative uncertainty of his claims and the temperament of a reasonable academic. Clusters of hedges show the scientist carefully marshalling his facts and asking readers to consider the evidence for his arguments, a rhetorical strategy discussed by Toulmin (1958) and widely used in modern academic discourse (Hyland, 1998a). Hedges imply that a statement is based on the writer’s interpretation rather than certain knowledge, and this is clear where Darwin enters realms of probability. In this example he projects current evidence concerning stock breeding back into the past, an argument that clearly involves considerable speculation:
(1)我认为, 整个问题仍需保持模糊;然而,我可以不在此赘述细节,仅从地理和其他方面的考虑来看,我认为家犬极有可能起源于几种野生动物。至于绵羊和山羊,我无法形成意见。根据布莱斯先生向我提供的关于印度驼峰牛的习性、叫声、体质等方面的资料,我认为它们与欧洲牛的祖先并非同一物种;而且一些权威人士也认为,欧洲牛的祖先不止一个。至于马,出于一些我无法在此详述的原因,我倾向于相信(与一些作者的观点相反),所有马匹品种都起源于同一个野生种群。
(1) The whole subject must, I think, remain vague; nevertheless, I may, without here entering on any details, state that, from geographical and other considerations, I think it highly probable that our domestic dogs have descended from several wild species. In regard to sheep and goats I can form no opinion. I should think, from facts communicated to me by Mr Blyth, on the habits, voice, and constitution, &c., of the humped Indian cattle, that these had descended from a different aboriginal stock from our European cattle; and several competent judges believe that these latter have had more than one wild parent. With respect to horses, from reasons which I cannot give here, I am doubtfully inclined to believe, in opposition to several authors, that all the races have descended from one wild stock.
此外,使用限定性词语也旨在通过开辟一个可供读者质疑的讨论空间来说服读者。提出论断是有风险的,因为它可能与现有文献相矛盾,或挑战读者的观点,而达尔文预料到自己的著作会遭到强烈反对,这是正确的。自然选择理论曾受到猛烈抨击,尤其来自那些受神创论宗教信仰影响的人。论证必须满足读者的期望,即允许他们参与对话,并且他们的观点会在讨论中得到认可。因此,达尔文通过对无法证实的问题表达谨慎态度,并在挑战既有观点时留下辩论的空间,从而赢得了同行的信任。因此,通过使用限定性词语将陈述标记为暂定,他试图表达对读者观点的尊重,并让他们参与到对其论断的验证过程中(Hyland,1998a)。
In addition, hedges also seek to persuade readers by opening a discursive space where interpretations can be disputed. Claim-making is risky because it can contradict existing literature or challenge the views of one’s readers, and Darwin was right to anticipate fierce opposition to his work. The theory of natural selection was bitterly criticized, not least by those influenced by the religious convictions of creationism. Arguments must accommodate readers’ expectations that they will be allowed to participate in a dialogue and that their own views will be acknowledged in the discourse. Darwin therefore gained some credibility from his peers by expressing caution about matters which he could not prove, and by opening the opportunity for debate where he challenged accepted views. By marking statements as provisional with hedges, therefore, he sought to convey deference and respect for readers’ views and involve them in the ratification of his claims (Hyland, 1998a).
ii. 模式标记:增强符
ii. Modality markers: Boosters
但达尔文并非总是如此宽容和妥协,如果他总是如此,他的论点是否还能如此成功,也值得怀疑。例如,正如克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思所观察到的,他经常将含糊其辞的措辞与积极的论证结合起来。这是一种“外柔内刚”的策略,达尔文既能消除可能的反对意见,又能让读者对他的观点确信无疑。这一点在第一章开头的几个例子中就有所体现:
But Darwin is not always so accommodating and conciliatory, and it is doubtful whether his arguments would have been so successful if he had been. He often, for example, combined hedges with boosters, as Crismore and Farnsworth also observe. This is the iron fist in the velvet glove as Darwin heads off possible objections while leaving the reader in no doubt of his views. This can be seen in these examples from the opening of Chapter One:
(2) 我认为我们不得不得出这样的结论:这种更大的差异仅仅是因为我们国内的生产是在生活条件不如……统一的情况下进行的。
(2) I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability is simply due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as . . .
很明显,有机生物必须经过几代人的时间,不断适应新的生活条件,才能产生任何显著的变化。
It seems pretty clear that organic beings must be exposed during several generations to the new conditions of life to cause any appreciable amount of variation.
达尔文的大部分支持者都位于句首或从句中,这使他能够阐述自己的个人观点并突出自己的视角:
Most of Darwin’s boosters begin sentences or clauses, allowing him to thematize his personal view and make his perspective prominent:
(3)即使就全世界的家犬而言,我完全承认它们可能起源于几个野生动物物种,但我毫不怀疑它们已经产生了大量的遗传变异。
(3) Even in the case of the domestic dogs of the whole world, which I fully admit have probably descended from several wild species, I cannot doubt that there has been an immense amount of inherited variation.
但我强烈倾向于怀疑,造成这种变异的最常见原因可能是男性和女性的生殖器官在受孕之前受到了影响。
But I am strongly inclined to suspect that the most frequent cause of variability may be attributed to the male and female reproductive elements having been affected prior to the act of conception.
我们必须相信这些颜色有助于保护这些鸟类和昆虫免受危险。
We must believe that these tints are of service to these birds and insects in preserving them from danger.
在其他一些地方,尤其是在总结或整合讨论成果时,达尔文会展现出一种权威的形象,给人一种自信满满、笃定的感觉。第一章和第四章的结尾段落就很好地体现了这种毫不动摇的确定性:
At other points, particularly when he is summarizing or assembling the product of his discussion, Darwin adopts an authoritative persona, presenting an ethos which is confident and assured. The closing paragraphs of Chapters One and Four illustrate this unhedged certainty very well:
(4)总结一下我们家养动植物品种的起源。我认为,生活条件,尤其是其对生殖系统的影响,是造成变异的最重要因素。我不认为变异是所有有机体在任何情况下都固有的、必然的,正如某些作者所认为的那样。
(4) To sum up on the origin of our Domestic Races of animals and plants. I believe that the conditions of life, from their action on the reproductive system, are so far of the highest importance as causing variability. I do not believe that variability is an inherent and necessary contingency, under all circumstances, with all organic beings, as some authors have thought.
(第一章)
(Chapter 1)
自然选择会改变幼崽相对于父母的结构,也会改变父母相对于幼崽的结构。在社会性动物中,如果每个个体都能从这种选择带来的改变中获益,自然选择就会调整每个个体的结构,以造福整个群体。自然选择无法做到的是,在不给一个物种带来任何优势的情况下,改变一个物种的结构,使其有利于另一个物种;尽管在一些自然史著作中可以找到类似的说法,但我找不到任何值得考证的案例。
Natural selection will modify the structure of the young in relation to the parent, and of the parent in relation to the young. In social animals it will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the community; if each in consequence profits by the selected change. What natural selection cannot do, is to modify the structure of one species, without giving it any advantage, for the good of another species; and though statements to this effect may be found in works of natural history, I cannot find one case which will bear investigation.
(第四章)
(Chapter 4)
三、态度指标和评论
iii. Attitude markers and commentary
达尔文的伦理观也体现在他对态度标记的使用上。克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思指出,达尔文频繁使用“奇异的”、“奇妙的”和“美妙的”等评价性词语, “通过他对自然奇迹的敬畏,展现了他的人性以及他对研究对象的态度”(克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思,1989:107)。这些情感信号本身并无重要的命题价值,但却展现了达尔文对研究对象的热情以及与读者的共鸣。因此,态度标记在增强其论证的说服力方面发挥着关键作用,它们既表明了达尔文与同行科学家的团结,又暗示了他们自身可能如何看待这些材料。
Darwin’s ethos is also expressed in his use of attitude markers. Crismore and Farnsworth point out that by the frequent use of evaluative terms such as strange, curiously and wonderful, ‘Darwin reveals his humanity and his attitude toward the subject matter through his awe before the miracle of nature’ (Crismore and Farnsworth, 1989: 107). These signals of affect have no important propositional value, but display Darwin’s excitement about his subject matter and affiliation to his audience. Attitude markers therefore play a key role in strengthening the persuasiveness of his argument by claiming solidarity with fellow scientists while at the same time suggesting how they might themselves respond to the material.
最后,达尔文喜欢在文本中插入评论,以此与读者建立联系,并将他们引入他的论证中。他运用这些手法,既表达了对读者努力理解可能并不熟悉的论述的尊重和赞赏,同时也展现了一种权威性。这位“通情达理”的达尔文先生,常常会用评注的方式,从元话语的角度提及他接下来要论述的内容。他会先用一段近乎歉意的评论来引出接下来的论述,表明他不得不这样做。由此可见,这位表达方式既得体又有礼貌:
Finally, Darwin is fond of interjecting comments into the text to build a relationship with readers and draw them into his argument. His use of these features helps to convey respect and appreciation for his readers’ attempts to come to terms with what may be an unfamiliar discourse, while simultaneously presenting an ethosof the ‘reasonable’ Mr Darwin. Often, Darwin uses commentary to metadiscoursally refer to what he intends to do in the next part of his argument, introducing this with a comment which, almost apologetically, shows he is impelled to act in this way. Here, then, is the tactful and polite presenter:
(5)为了清楚地说明我认为自然选择是如何起作用的,我必须请求允许我举一两个想象的例子。
(5) In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations.
现在我必须就人类选择能力的有利或不利因素谈几句。
I must now say a few words on the circumstances, favourable, or the reverse, to man’s power of selection.
我在此必须插一句题外话。
I must here introduce a short digression.
这种对论述的评述使作者完全融入文本之中,同时也吸引读者,表明作者认识到并满足了读者对清晰度和参与度的需求。然而,当他使用“我们”和“我们自己”来促进作者与读者之间的紧密联系时,这一点就更加明显了:
Such commentary on the discourse puts the writer squarely into the text, but draws the reader in as well, showing that his or her needs for clarity and engagement are recognized and attended to. This is more obvious, however, when he promotes a close author–reader relationship by using we and us:
(6) 现在让我们简要考虑一下家畜品种是如何从一个或几个近缘物种中培育出来的。
(6) Let us now briefly consider the steps by which domestic races have been produced, either from one or from several allied species.
这一点在习性简单的动物身上体现得尤为明显。
We can clearly see this in the case of animals with simple habits.
我们可以通过考察一个国家经历某些自然变化(例如气候变化)的情况,来更好地理解自然选择的可能过程。
We shall best understand the probable course of natural selection by taking the case of a country undergoing some physical change, for instance, of climate.
通过巧妙地将读者引入论述,并运用包容性代词将作者与读者联系起来,达尔文得以与读者建立平等关系,并营造出共同追求同一科学目标的氛围。达尔文由此增强了自身的可信度,并引导读者认同他的观点,从而构建了一种共同事业的氛围。
By carefully bringing the reader into the discourse, and by binding the writer and reader together through inclusive pronouns in this way, Darwin was able to claim an equality with his audience and create a sense of a joint pursuit of the same scientific goals. Darwin thus enhances his credibility and conjures a joint enterprise as he leads his readers to his viewpoint.
我花了一些时间探讨《物种起源》中元话语的运用,旨在阐明其在学术论证中的作用,并借鉴克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃斯的观点,展示元话语如何体现作者的伦理理念。对达尔文《物种起源》的细读能够提供关于元话语运用的精彩见解,感兴趣的读者或许会对此感兴趣。我希望对此进行更深入的探讨,但并非只有那些备受赞誉的权威著作才会以这种方式运用元话语。每一篇研究论文、书评、学生论文、项目申请书、语言课程和会议报告,只有当演讲者和作者恰当地运用元话语来塑造可信的形象,并以熟悉且引人入胜的方式与受众建立联系时,才能取得成功。这并非意味着学术论证只是障眼法。最终,我们会被那些似乎以我们能够理解的方式描述世界的论证所说服。而元话语在引导我们达到这一目标的过程中发挥着至关重要的作用。正如西蒙斯(1980:127)所精辟指出的那样,“尽管科学驴子可能被拴上了一条不雅的修辞尾巴,但它仍然能够驮着重物”。
I have spent some time in discussing the use of metadiscourse in The Origin of Species to both illustrate its role in academic persuasion and, following Crismore and Farnsworth, to show how it can realize the author’s ethos. A close reading of Darwin’s Origin offers fascinating insights into the use of metadiscourse, and interested readers might wish to explore this further, but it is not only celebrated and prestigious texts which employ metadiscourse in this way. Every research article, book review, student essay, grant proposal, language class and conference presentation can only succeed if speakers and writers deploy metadiscourse appropriately to convey a credible persona and relate to an audience in ways that seem familiar and engaging. This is not to say that academic persuasion is just smoke and mirrors. Ultimately we are convinced by an argument that seems to describe the world in a way that make sense to us. But metadiscourse plays a critical role in bringing us to this point. As Simons (1980: 127) has eloquently expressed it, ‘although the scientific donkey may have been pinned with an unbecoming rhetorical tail, it is still capable of carrying a heavy load’.
4.4 商业话语和元话语
4.4 Business discourse and metadiscourse
好的论证只有在特定视角下才被认为是好的,而商业写作,如同学术论述一样,其目的在于构建这种视角。亚里士多德认为,说服首先意味着识别并吸引受众,就当今的商业沟通而言,这意味着改变员工、客户、消费者、股东、监管机构以及其他能够影响公司运营和盈利能力的人员的行为。文本通过运用上述修辞手法来实现这一目标,并运用元话语来构建我们所处的世界,从而帮助塑造积极的企业、个人或产品形象。
Good arguments are seen to be good only from a certain point of view, and, like academic discourse, business writing works to create that point of view. Aristotle argued that persuasion first means identifying and engaging an audience, and in terms of today’s business communication, this involves modifying the behaviour of employees, clients, customers, shareholders, regulators and others who are in a position to influence company operations and profitability. Texts do this by drawing the same rhetorical appeals discussed above, employing metadiscourse to construct the world we live in by helping to create a positive corporate, personal or product image.
例如,直邮促销信函就充分体现了这一点,这类信函旨在鼓励读者购买或支持其推广的产品。Bhatia (1993) 和 Cheung (1993) 认为,框架标记、祈使句和缓和语是实现这一说服目的的关键要素,它们能够吸引读者并引导他们采取期望的行为。Nus (1999: 196) 也发现,诸如连接词(例如“因此”、“但是”、“然而”)之类的互动标记对于吸引读者注意“发件人希望能够促使读者考虑该优惠或信息”至关重要。元话语的重要性在于……公司邮件中也存在类似情况。例如,穆尔霍兰德(1999)发现,一家大型跨国公司的内部邮件缺乏预期的互动功能,导致员工感到困惑,并引发了严重的不满。如果将邮件仅仅视为信息渠道,而忽略重要的情感和人际因素,那么邮件撰写者不仅削弱了信息的传达效果,也损害了团队的和谐与合作。
This is clear in direct mail sales promotion letters, for instance, which encourage readers to buy or support the product these letters sponsor. Bhatia (1993) and Cheung (1993) see frame markers, imperatives and hedges as key elements of this persuasive purpose, working to engage readers and lead them to the desired behaviour. Nus (1999: 196) also found interactive markers such as connectors (therefore, but, however) to be crucial in drawing ‘attention to the offer or to information which the sender hopes will motivate the reader to consider the offer’. The importance of metadiscourse is also apparent in company emails.Mulholland (1999), for instance, discovered that the absence of expected interactional features in the internal emails of a major multinational company resulted in confusion and created serious resentment among staff. By treating emails as purely an information channel and omitting important affective and interpersonal elements, writers both undermined the message and jeopardized harmony and cooperation.
元话语修辞作用最清晰的例证之一或许就是广告。例如,Fuertes-Olivera等人(2001)指出,元话语被广泛用于广告标语和标题中,“以信息性的外衣传递说服性信息”(第1305页)。在杂志广告领域,元话语帮助文案撰写者与读者建立情感联系,从而实现修辞目标,并最终达成商业目标。
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the rhetorical role of metadiscourse is found in advertisements. Fuertes-Olivera et al. (2001), for instance, show that metadiscourse is extensively used in advertising slogans and headlines ‘to convey a persuasive message under an informative mask’ (p. 1305). In the genre of magazine advertising, metadiscourse assists copywriters in creating solidarity with readers to secure rhetorical, and ultimately commercial, objectives.
在这方面,大量使用自我提及非常重要,因为将作者置于文本之中,会让消费者感觉自己被当作对象来对待。Fuertes-Olivera等人(2001:1298-9)指出,这种个性化可以通过三种方式实现。首先,自我提及可以将产品或服务与公司联系起来,从而增强与潜在消费者的共鸣(所有示例均来自 Fuertes-Olivera等人):
The extensive use of self-mention is important in this respect as projecting the author into the text gives individual consumers the impression that they are being addressed personally. Fuertes-Olivera et al. (2001: 1298–9) point out that this personalization is achieved in three ways. First, self-mention can engender solidarity with potential consumers by identifying the product or service with the company (all examples from Fuertes-Olivera et al.):
(7)您的皮肤敏感,我们有敏感肌肤专用湿巾。
(7) You have sensitive skin, we have sensitive wipes.
(简易湿巾)
(Simple wipes)
其次,自我提及鼓励潜在客户将产品与文化偶像联系起来,要么强化刻板印象,如 (8a) 中将意大利食物与美味联系起来,要么削弱刻板印象,如 (8b) 中打破了永恒恋人的神话:
Second, self-mention encourages potential customers to associate the product with cultural icons, by either reinforcing stereotypes, as in (8a) which relates to the idea that Italian food is delicious, or undermining them, as in (8b), which breaks the myth of the eternal lover:
(8)(a)大多数意面酱听起来像意大利菜。我的意面酱尝起来像意大利菜。
(8) (a) Most pasta sauces sound Italian. Mine taste Italian.
(Sacia 意大利面)
(Sacia pasta)
(b)他曾承诺从头到脚 爱我。那么,究竟哪里出了问题?
(b) He promised to love me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. So what went wrong?
(舒尔足部止汗剂)
(Scholl foot antiperspirant)
第三,它们可以用来将产品与名人联系起来:
Third, they can be used to associate the product with a celebrity:
(9)欧米茄——我的选择。辛迪·克劳馥。
(9) Omega – my choice. Cindy Crawford.
(欧米茄手表)
(Omega watches)
因此,这一元话语装置为文案撰写者提供工具,通过产品与文化偶像的联系和可靠性,培养潜在客户对产品的信任,从而创造一种值得信赖的氛围。
This one metadiscourse device thus provide copywriters with a tool to develop the potential customer’s trust in a product through its connection with cultural icons and a sense of reliability, creating an ethos of dependability.
这些来自杂志广告和销售信函的简短示例表明,与潜在消费者建立联系并构建可信的品牌形象对于实现企业目标至关重要。但这些策略在其他形式的商业沟通中也同样重要。下一节将更详细地探讨经典的修辞手法,以探究公司首席执行官如何运用元话语在公司年度报告中构建具有说服力的逻辑、信誉和情感诉求。
These brief examples from the genres of magazine advertising and sales letters show that creating solidarity with potential consumers and constructing a credible ethos are essential to meeting corporate goals. But these are also important strategies in other forms of business communication. The following section takes a more detailed look at classical rhetorical appeals to explore how metadiscourse is used by company CEOs to create a persuasive logos, ethos and pathos in company annual reports.
4.5 公司年度报告中的元话语和修辞
4.5 Metadiscourse and rhetoric in company annual reports
年度报告是一份至关重要的公司文件,而首席执行官致股东信则是其中最突出、最受关注的部分。尽管年度报告常被批评为“五页财务信息加上四十页废话”(Wild,1997),但其编制仍然是一项重要的公司活动,仅在美国就代表着一个价值超过70亿美元的产业。在年度报告中,首席执行官致股东信被广泛视为一种宣传文体,旨在向股东、经纪人、监管机构、财经媒体和投资公众塑造并传递公司形象(Anderson和Imperia,1992:114)。通常以签名个人信件的形式撰写,这份文件在建立信誉和增强信心方面具有巨大的修辞意义,能够使投资者相信公司正在推行稳健有效的战略。因此,尽管投资决策主要基于财务数据(例如Epstein和Pava,1993),但首席执行官致股东信仍然被广泛阅读(Coutis,1982),其内容也至关重要。它是验证定量指标的重要手段(Poe,1994)。因此,它对企业的竞争地位有着重大影响(Kohut和Segars,1992)。
The annual report is a crucial corporate document and the CEO’s letter to shareholders is its most prominent and widely read part. Although frequently criticized as ‘five pages of financial information and 40 pages of fluff’ (Wild, 1997), the production of annual reports is a major corporate endeavour, representing an industry worth over $7 billion in the US alone. Within the report, the CEO’s letter is widely seen as a promotional genre, designed to construct and convey a corporate image to stockholders, brokers, regulatory agencies, financial media and the investing public (Anderson and Imperia, 1992: 114). Generally written as a signed personal letter, the document has enormous rhetorical importance in building credibility and imparting confidence, convincing investors that the company is pursuing sound and effective strategies. So, while investment decisions are mainly based on financial data (e.g. Epstein and Pava, 1993), the CEO’s letter is widely read (Coutis, 1982) and its contents are an important means of validating quantitative measures (Poe, 1994). It therefore has a major impact on a firm’s competitive position (Kohut and Segars, 1992).
因此,CEO信函是一种高度修辞性的产物,旨在通过展现信誉、消除疑虑和避免争议来争取支持。事实上,它通常由一个专业撰稿团队合作撰写,耗时可能长达三个月(Cross,1990)。实际上,33%的CEO与出现在他们签名上方的信函毫无关系(Cato,1985)。因此,这种信函是一种精心打造的说服性产品,旨在赢得读者对公司形象和过去一年业绩的正面评价。所以,尽管表面上是一种信息性文体,旨在客观评估公司的活动、业绩和未来计划,但实际上,它已超越了被动披露的范畴,成为一种企业意识形态和企业形象代言人的营销手段。因此,毫不奇怪,在香港联交所上市公司的公开报告中,137位首席执行官的信函中广泛运用了元话语来支持这些目标(Hyland,1998c)。在一个包含50万词的语料库中,有3500个元话语条目,这意味着平均每50个词就有一个元话语条目。
The CEO’s letter is thus a highly rhetorical creation, written to galvanize support through the expression of credibility, the resolution of uncertainty, and the avoidance of dispute. Indeed, it is often collaboratively ghostwritten by a team of professional writers who may take three months to produce it (Cross, 1990). In fact, 33 per cent of CEOs have nothing at all to do with the letter that appears above their signature (Cato, 1985). This genre is then a carefully crafted persuasive product designed to gain the reader’s acceptance for a positive construction of the company’s image and performance over the year. So while ostensibly an informative genre, which lays out an objective assessment of the company’s activities, performance and future plans, the letter clearly moves beyond passive disclosure to what amounts to the marketing of a corporate ideology and a corporate figurehead. It is not surprising, therefore, to find metadiscourse extensively used in support of these goals in 137 CEOs’ letters in the published reports of companies listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange (Hyland, 1998c). With 3,500 metadiscourse items in a corpus of half a million words, this amounts to about one device every 50 words.
这些数据与公司年报另一部分——董事报告——中所呈现的元话语形成鲜明对比。董事报告罗列了《公司条例》和证券交易所要求的强制性信息。与更具说服力的首席执行官致辞不同,董事报告对公司年度进行了描述性回顾,详细阐述了公司的各项活动,总结了收购情况,描述了资产变动等等。如表4.1所示,这种客观的法定信息摘要揭示了元话语的语境特殊性,并凸显了其在首席执行官致辞中促进修辞目标实现的重要性。
These figures contrast markedly with the metadiscourse to be found in another section of the company annual report: the directors’ report. This is a catalogue of compulsory details required by the Companies Ordinance and the stock exchange. Unlike the more overtly persuasive CEO’s letter, this provides a descriptive review of the year, detailing the activities of the company, summarizing acquisitions, describing changes in assets, and so on. As can be seen in Table 4.1, such an objective digest of statutory information reveals the contextual specificity of metadiscourse and highlights its importance in promoting rhetorical goals in the CEOs’ letters.
表 4.1公司报告各章节中元话语的功能
Table 4.1 Functions of metadiscourse in sections of company reports
董事报告中的元话语量约为首席执行官信函的一半,但最显著的差异在于所使用的互动手段:首席执行官信函每千字所使用的互动手段数量是董事报告的七倍。这表明,作者们在与读者建立联系并引导他们参与企业意识形态的推广方面投入了更多精力。主要元话语首席执行官们在信函中使用的修辞手法主要是过渡语和缓和语,这两项加起来占了所有内容的2/3。这些权势人物很少依赖证据,而是选择通过个人权威来建立信誉,只有在会计机构或监管机构能够强调积极成果时才会提及其他来源。虽然幕后有一大批会计师和营销专家负责收集和包装信函中的信息,但最终站在读者面前呈现这些信息的却是首席执行官本人。正如达尔文的《物种起源》中所述,作者运用元话语是他们成功做到这一点的关键要素,我将简要阐述这些文本中如何运用元话语来构建亚里士多德最早提出的理性、可信和情感诉求。
The directors’ reports contained about half the metadiscourse of the CEOs’ letters, but most striking is the difference in the interactional devices employed, with the CEOs’ letters containing seven times as many devices per 1,000 words. This illustrates the far greater efforts of the writers to align with readers and engage them in the promotion of the corporate ideology. The main metadiscourse devices in the CEOs’ letters were transitions and hedges, which together comprised two-thirds of all items. These powerful people had little use for evidentials, choosing instead to build their credibility through personal authority and only referring to other sources when positive results could be underscored by accounting houses or regulatory bodies. While a battery of accountants and marketing specialists work behind the scenes to assemble and spin the information presented in the letter, it is the CEO who stands before the readers to present them. As in Darwin’s The Origin of Species, writers’ deployment of metadiscourse is a key element of how they do this successfully, and I will briefly illustrate the ways it is used in these texts to create the rational, credible and affective appeals first discussed by Aristotle.
一、逻辑:创造理性诉求
i. Logos: creating rational appeals
理性诉求对应于希腊语中的“逻各斯”(logos)概念,即运用理性进行说服,而这主要通过文本的命题内容来实现。作者如何定义问题、支撑论点、验证前提以及陈述结论,对于读者是否可能接受论证至关重要。但同样重要的是,作者如何阐述论证以及论证要素之间的联系。通过添加、比较、排序或解释论证要素来展开论证的逻辑联系,正是论证的精髓所在。对文本整体说服力至关重要。对互动元话语的分析有助于区分文本中使用的说服手段的结构。
Rational appeals correspond to the Greek concept of logos, the use of reason in persuasion, and this is mainly accomplished through the propositional content of the text. How writers choose to define problems, support claims, validate premises and state conclusions are crucial to whether an audience is likely to accept an argument. But no less important is the way that writers set out their arguments and the connections they make between its elements. The logical connections used to elaborate an argument by adding, comparing, sequencing or explaining its elements are critical to a text’s overall persuasive force. Analysis of interactive metadiscourse can help distinguish the structure of the persuasive appeals employed in a text.
互动式元话语通过解释、引导和指引读者理解文本信息。它在修辞上发挥作用,引导读者朝着作者论证的方向前进。因此,CEO的信函中每百字包含的互动式元话语比董事报告多出60%以上也就不足为奇了。尤其值得注意的是,CEO们花费了更多精力来明确标注话语宏观结构的各个部分,以确保读者理解论证的步骤顺序(10)、特定时刻正在进行的话语行为(11)或作者的目的(12)。
Interactive metadiscourse helps readers understand a text by explaining, orienting and guiding them through the information. It functions rhetorically to point readers in the direction the writer intends by his or her argument. It is no surprise therefore to find that the CEOs’ letters contained over 60 per cent more interactive metadiscourse per 100 words than directors’ reports. In particular, the CEOs took considerably more trouble to explicitly label parts of the discourse macrostructure, either to ensure the reader understood the sequence of steps in the argument (10), the discourse act being performed at a particular point (11), or the writer’s purpose (12):
(10) 我认为这主要有三个原因。首先,过去十二个月里,我们看到海外需求有所回升。
(10) I think there are three main reasons for this. Firstly we have seen an upturn in overseas demand in the past twelve months.
(Jusco,1994)
(Jusco, 1994)
不过,在讨论这个问题之前,我想先强调一些积极的方面。
Before discussing this however, I would like to highlight some of the positives.
(雀巢,1993)
(Nestlé, 1993)
(11) 总之,该小组对塑料行业的前景非常乐观。
(11) In conclusion, the group is very optimistic about the prospects of the plastics industry.
(Wing On,1994)
(Wing On, 1994)
为了说明这个市场有多么吸引人,1992年纽约三州地区的市场份额超过了……
To illustrate how attractive this market is, in 1992 the New York tri-state area accounted for more than . . .
(大通曼哈顿银行,1993年)
(Chase Manhattan, 1993)
(12) 我谨此表达我对他们贡献的感谢。
(12) I wish to record my appreciation of their contribution.
(香港银行,1994年)
(HK Bank, 1994)
接下来我将逐一讨论这些核心业务。
I will now discuss each of these core businesses.
(太平洋协和出版社,1993年)
(Pacific Concord, 1993)
除了这些框架标记之外,主席们的信函中还有近四倍数量的代码注释。这些注释有助于读者理解作者阐述特定信息意义的方式。意图,特别是通过扩展某个项目的内容,以确保其细节或意义被理解:
In addition to these frame markers, there were also almost four times more code glosses in the Chairpersons’ letters. These help readers grasp the significance of particular information in the way the writer intends, particularly by expanding an item to ensure either its details or significance were understood:
(13)该集团正按计划继续开发其三个主要住宅区,即拉古纳城、南地平线和金斯伍德别墅。
(13) The group is continuing to develop its three major housing estates, namely Laguna City, South Horizons, and Kingswood Villas, according to plan.
(长康集团,1994年)
(Cheung Hong Holdings, 1994)
集团本年度盈利为每股 2.14 港元(1992 年为每股 1.91 港元),增长了 11.9%。
Group earnings for the year, representing HK$2.14 per share (1992 HK$ 1.91), have increased by 11.9%.
(中国电力公司,1994年)
(China Light and Power, 1994)
关键是——这无关紧要。
The point is – it didn’t matter.
(通用电气,1993)
(General Electric, 1993)
然而,文本论证结构最常用的明确表达方式是通过过渡词。这些过渡词表明了作者希望读者如何理解讨论中各个要素之间的联系。它们通过连词(例如“ and”或“but ”)、句中副词(例如“nevertheless”或“consequently ”)以及介词短语(例如“due to”或“ in spite of ”)来实现。同样,这些过渡词在首席执行官的信函中出现得更为频繁,因为首席执行官的信函更需要确保阐述清晰,并帮助读者理解作者的推理过程。
The most frequent way that the argument structure of a text is made explicit, however, is through transitions. These denote how the writer intends the connections between elements of the discussion to be understood. They are realized through conjunctions (and or but), sentential adverbs (nevertheless or consequently) and by prepositional phrases (due to or in spite of). Again, these occur much more frequently in the CEOs’ letters as here there is a greater need to ensure clarity of exposition and assist readers to recover the writers’ reasoning:
(14)这种观点必须考虑到乌拉圭回合关贸总协定谈判迟迟未能成功结束,而这 对于世界自由贸易谈判以及我们核心业务的福祉至关重要。
(14) This view must be tempered by the continuing delay in bringing about a successful conclusion to the Uruguay round of GATT talks which is so crucial to the world’s free trade talks and therefore the wellbeing of our core business.
(东方海外,1992)
(Orient Overseas, 1992)
公司盈利能力卓越,并通过发展新的经销商关系,持续扩大客户群体。同时,与往年一样,投资组合信贷质量也保持在高水平。
Profitability was outstanding and the company continued to broaden its customer base by developing new dealer relationships. Likewise, as in prior years, portfolio credit quality was maintained at high levels.
(道恒银行,1993)
(Dao Heng Bank, 1993)
受大多数西方工业化国家经济好转的提振,香港的出口和转口贸易表现预计将有所改善。另一方面,鉴于中国高通胀和经济过热,宏观经济紧缩政策可能在1995年继续实施。
Hong Kong’s export and entrepot trade performance is expected to improve, buoyed by economic improvement in most western industrial countries. On the other hand, in view of the high inflation and overheated economy in China, macro-economic restraint policies are likely to continue in 1995.
(永隆银行,1994年)
(Wing Lung Bank, 1994)
有趣的是,修辞CEO信函的目的体现在其所表达的关系类型上。表4.2显示,董事报告中附加句的使用频率远高于CEO信函,而CEO信函则更多地使用比较和因果关系等连接词,这表明CEO信函中的论证相对更为复杂。
It is interesting that the rhetorical purposes of the CEOs’ letters is reflected in the types of relations expressed. Table 4.2 shows a far heavier use of additive devices in directors’ reports while CEOs employ more connectors of comparison and consequence, indicating the relatively greater complexity of the argument in these texts.
表 4.2转换类型
Table 4.2 Types of transitions
董事会报告通常是对公司主要业务活动的简单罗列,包括董事信息和交易业绩摘要。而在首席执行官的信函中,读者更有可能看到对财务业绩的解释、对特定行动方案的论证以及对未来计划的探讨。这类话题需要大量使用过渡词,以便流畅地表达例外情况、偏离最初方案以及根据新情况调整的策略。
Directors’ reports are often simple inventories of the company’s principal activities, details of directors and a summary of trading results. In the CEO’s letter readers are far more likely to encounter explanations for financial performance, justifications for particular courses of action and discussions of plans for the future. These kinds of topics demand a high use of transitions to facilitate a discourse which is able to convey exceptions to general situations, deviations from original proposals and changing strategies in the light of new circumstances.
在所有互动元话语类型中,董事会报告中出现频率更高的只有内指标记,即引导读者在文本其他部分查找更多信息的手段。这或许可以解释为,董事会报告往往集中涵盖大量内容,使其“几乎沦为年度报告其他部分的参考信息汇总”(Martin,1989:78)。而首席执行官的信函则是一份相对独立的文档,没有可供参考的图表或图片材料,平均长度约为1200字。几乎没有机会发展出可能需要更多指称表达方式的那种发展。
The only category of interactive metadiscourse which occurred more in the directors’ reports was endophoric markers, devices which refer the reader elsewhere in the text for further information. This is perhaps explained by the tendency to concentrate a wide range of items into the directors’ report so that it is often ‘little more than a clearing house for reference to other parts of the annual report’ (Martin, 1989: 78). The CEOs’ letter, on the other hand, is a relatively self-contained document, with no graphical or pictorial material to make reference to and an average length of around 1200 words, offering little opportunity for the kind of development that might require more referring expressions.
二、诉诸权威:建立可信度
ii. Ethos: creating credibility appeals
正如我们从达尔文对互动元话语的运用中所看到的,成功的说服很大程度上取决于作者塑造有效形象的能力。作者的诚信和权威在首席执行官的信函中尤为重要(Epstein和Pava,1993;Jacobson,1988:52),其中“诚实”(Cato,1994:29)和“坦率”(Poe,1994)被视为有效沟通的关键要素。尽管一些首席执行官在年报发表声明之前可能已经拥有很高的公众形象,但他们仍然需要在文本中重新树立自己的形象。因此,元话语成为首席执行官将自身投射到文字中,展现其胜任、值得信赖、权威和诚实形象的一种手段。对CEO的信誉诉求贡献最大的元话语方面是缓和语、增强语、参与标志和证据,所有这些都有助于表明作者是一位直言不讳、坚持特定观点并有信心为公司取得最佳利益的作者。
As we saw with Darwin’s use of interactional metadiscourse, successful persuasion depends very much on the writer’s ability to create an effective ethos. The perceived integrity and authority of the writer is particularly important in CEOs’ letters (Epstein and Pava, 1993; Jacobson, 1988: 52) where ‘honesty’ (Cato, 1994: 29) and ‘candour’ (Poe, 1994) are regarded as crucial elements of effective communication. While some CEOs may have a high profile image prior to their pronouncements in the annual report, they still have to re-establish their ethos in their texts. Metadiscourse is therefore a means by which CEOs can project themselves into their writing to present a competent, trustworthy, authoritative and honest persona. The aspects of metadiscourse which contribute most to the CEOs’ credibility appeals are hedges, boosters, engagement markers and evidentials, all of which help to suggest a forthright writer committed to particular views and confident in achieving the best for the company.
显然,公司的成功最容易赢得信誉,在这种情况下,首席执行官可以借助外部资源来强化其论断的权威性。虽然此类论证并不常见,但当证据支持首席执行官的观点或其在公司蓬勃发展中所扮演的角色时,证据性论证也会出现。此时,引用正面评价的来源信息,并辅以极具感染力的表达,可以强化对公司业绩的有力支持。
Credibility is obviously most easily gained on the strength of company successes, and, in such circumstances, CEOs may be able to draw on external sources to underline the authority of their assertions. Although not widely found in this genre, evidentials occur where they lend support for either the CEO’s views or his or her role in a thriving company. Here attributions to sources with positive evaluations can be combined with highly charged expressions to reinforce an emphatic endorsement of the company’s performances.
(15)根据 《欧洲货币》杂志的评价 ,我们是新兴市场债务的最高评级承销商,《国际融资评论》杂志将摩根大通评为“年度新兴市场债务公司”。
(15) We’re the top-rated underwriter of emerging markets debt, according to Euromoney, and International Financing Review named Chase ‘Emerging markets debt house of the year’.
(大通曼哈顿银行,1994年)
(Chase Manhattan, 1994)
其他研究表明,1993 年商户对美国运通的整体满意度大幅提高。
Other research indicates that the overall satisfaction of merchants with American Express improved dramatically in 1993.
(美国运通公司,1993年)
(American Express, 1993)
更常见的情况是,CEO需要通过恰当的自我展示来塑造企业形象,具体做法是“强调积极的一面”,并在文字中树立个人权威。实现这一目标的一种方法是使用积极的言辞来强调确定性。在论述中树立个人形象。主席们经常使用增强型措辞来展现自信、果断和权威的形象。它们通过传递确定性、保证性和信念,帮助作者在股东和潜在投资者心中树立信心和信任:
More typically, the CEO has to build an ethos through an appropriate presentation of self by ‘accentuating the positive’ and stamping a personal authority on the text. One way he or she can do this is through the use of boosters to underline certainty and establish an individual presence in the discourse. Boosters are widely used by chairpersons to demonstrate a confident, decisive and commanding image. They help the writer to instil confidence and trust in shareholders and potential investors through an impression of certainty, assurance and conviction in the views presented:
(16)正如我们价值 314 亿港元的飞机和设备订单清楚地表明的那样,我们对香港的未来仍然非常有信心。
(16) As our HK$31,400 million worth of aircraft and equipment orders clearly show, we remain very confident about the future of Hong Kong.
(国泰航空,1994年)
(Cathay Pacific, 1994)
中国的商业活动必将创造前所未有的机遇……
Commercial activities in China will definitely create unprecedented opportunities . . .
(Ryoden Developments,1993)
(Ryoden Developments, 1993)
我们坚信我们已做好充分准备,成为多媒体技术领域的领导者。
We firmly believe we are well positioned to become a multimedia technology leader.
(伟易达控股,1994年)
(Vtech Holdings, 1994)
此次构建个人形象的尝试中一个有趣的特点是大量使用自我提及,信件中出现了489个第一人称代词,而董事报告中则完全没有。这些自我提及与强化语气相结合,表达了作者的个人信念,强化了作者在文本中的存在感,并将首席执行官与所表达的观点直接联系起来。在这种话语形式中,带有判断性认知动词的自我提及,体现了作者对个人责任的公开承担,以及构建个人能力和权威形象的明确尝试。
An interesting feature of this attempt to build a personal ethos is the extensive use of self-mention, with 489 first-person pronouns in the letters and none at all in the directors’ reports. When combined with boosters, they provide expressions of personal belief which strengthen the writer’s presence in the text and directly align the CEO with the views expressed. In this form of discourse, self-mention with epistemic verbs of judgement underlie an overt acceptance of personal responsibility, and an explicit attempt to build a personal ethos of competence and authority:
(17) 我从担任行政委员会主席的一年中了解到,在过去的两年里,预算编制一直是一项非常微妙的工作。
(17) I know from my year as chairman of the Administration Board that budgeting has been a very delicate operation over the last two years.
(香港上海汇丰银行,1994年)
(Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, 1994)
我相信我们公司在1993年会继续发展壮大。
I am sure that our company will continue to grow in 1993.
(鳄鱼,1993)
(Crocodile, 1993)
我坚信,我们的员工应该分享 Cable and Wireless 的成功,并因其卓越的个人表现而获得丰厚的奖励。
I believe strongly that our people should share in the success of Cable and Wireless and be well rewarded for exceptional personal performance.
(C&W,1994)
(C&W, 1994)
第一人称的使用与……有效结合宣传推广是一种策略,旨在清晰地展现公司掌舵人坚定、自信和积极的形象。
The use of first person combines effectively with boosters as a strategy to clearly promote the image of a determined, confident and positive hand at the helm of the company.
遗憾的是,首席执行官作为权威人物的形象并非总是恰当的,尤其是在公司业绩不佳的年份。此时,首席执行官必须更加谨慎,重新审视其在“过度强调积极因素”(Cross,1990:198)和“不可避免的乐观基调”(Miller等, 1983:149)这一文体中所扮演的角色。因此,通过坦诚承认和言辞诚实来建立信誉的目标,需要受到业绩平平时期维持投资者信心的需要的制约。这种自信与坦率之间的微妙平衡,部分体现在吹捧和回避之间的平衡上,从而塑造权威和真诚的形象。通过使首席执行官能够表达观点,认知标记有助于塑造其形象。
Unfortunately, the CEO’s ethos as a commanding authority figure may not always be an appropriate one, particularly in years when the company has performed poorly. At such times the CEO has to be more circumspect, and reconsider his or her contribution to a genre which tends towards an ‘overly positive emphasis’ (Cross, 1990: 198) and an ‘inevitably optimistic tone’ (Miller et al., 1983: 149). The goal of building credibility through frank admissions and rhetorical honesty is thus tempered by the need to retain investor confidence during times of indifferent performance. This delicate equilibrium between confidence and candour is partly reflected in the balance between boosters and hedges which works to suggest an image of authority and sincerity. By enabling them to encode a point of view towards what they say, epistemic markers thus contribute to the CEOs’ ethos.
因此,有时首席执行官会试图塑造一个令人安心的形象:谦逊、值得信赖、谨慎的公司管理者,一个能够对未来可能性做出诚实评估、并且不会轻易动用投资者资金的人。这种自我塑造主要通过使用对冲语来实现,这类对冲语几乎占语料库中所有元话语条目的四分之一。不愿断言自己的观点代表绝对真理,有助于巩固首席执行官的声誉,使他/她成为一个言辞谨慎、注重诚信,并能坦诚面对市场波动和公司挫折的人,例如以下示例:
At times, then, a CEO may seek to present a reassuring image of a modest, trustworthy and cautious steward of the company, a person who can be relied on to make honest assessments of future possibilities and who takes few risks with investors’ capital. This self-projection is mainly accomplished through the use of hedges, which comprise nearly a quarter of all metadiscourse items in the corpus. A reluctance to assert that his or her views represent the unequivocal truth can help strengthen the CEO’s reputation as a person whose word is tempered by regard for restraint, integrity and an honest admission of market vagaries and company setbacks, as in these examples:
(18)然而,就目前而言,地方基础设施项目……应该能够弥补中华人民共和国经济增长速度放缓造成的任何缺口。
(18) At this juncture however it would appear that local infrastructure projects . . . should take up most of any slack caused by slower growth rates in the PRC.
(道恒银行,1993)
(Dao Heng Bank, 1993)
……可以预见,未来许多银行服务将通过电视屏幕直接送到家庭或办公场所。
. . . it is possible to envisage a future when many banking services will be delivered direct to the home or business place via television screens.
(巴克莱银行,1993年)
(Barclays, 1993)
以上每个项目都带来了租金的大幅上涨,我们有理由相信未来的努力也将产生类似的结果。
Each of the above projects has resulted in significant increase of rent and there is good reason to believe that future endeavors will produce similar results.
(厦门地产,1994年)
(Amoy Properties, 1994)
构建这样的图像可以因此,这能提升首席执行官的信誉和谦逊度,为冷冰冰的公司注入人性化的元素,也让股东更容易认同公司的理念和目标。另一方面,首席执行官的公开信当然会将他/她的观点公开表明出来,因此也体现了他/她对自身承诺程度的谨慎考量。因此,保留部分承诺,通常通过不明确指定代理人的对冲手段,也可以是一种审慎的保障措施,避免夸大其词,以免事后证明自己的观点是错误的。
Developing such an image can therefore promote the credibility and modesty of the CEO, restoring some humanity to a faceless corporation and making it easier for stockholders to identify with the ideals and objectives of the company. On the other hand, of cours e, the CEO’s letter publicly links the Chief Executive with his or her opinions, and so represents careful decisions concerning the degree of commitment he or she wishes to invest in them. Withholding commitment, often by use of hedges without an explicit agent, can therefore also be a prudent insurance against overstating an assertion which later proves to have been in error.
因此,缓和语是缓和令人失望的结果或失败项目表述方式的重要手段,也因此在其他需要政治技巧的商业领域中得到应用(Hagge 和 Kostelnick,1989)。谨慎的表达方式既能预判读者对坏消息的反应,又能力求保持坦诚和如实披露的风范。缓和语使作者与陈述保持一定距离,从而避免直接承担责任。这最大限度地减少了对个人信誉的损害,并传达了一种诚实和开放的职业风范。
Hedges, then, are an important means of mitigating the directness by which disappointing results or failed projects are presented, and as a result are also found in other business genres where political delicacy is required (Hagge and Kostelnick, 1989). Cautious expressions anticipate reader responses to bad news while simultaneously seeking to retain an ethos of frankness and honest disclosure. But by allowing the writer to assume some distance from a statement, hedges help avoid direct responsibility for it. This minimizes damage to personal credibility and conveys a professional ethos of honesty and openness.
(19) 总体而言,我们的服务业务取得了良好进展。
(19) Generally our Service businesses made good progress.
(Inchcape Pacific,1993)
(Inchcape Pacific, 1993)
1994 年,随着美国新泽西州全球集装箱基地客户群的扩大,情况可能会 有所改善。
Some improvement may be possible in 1994 as a result of the expansion of the customer base at Global Container Base at New Jersey, USA.
(东方海外,1993)
(Orient Overseas, 1993)
现阶段来看,1994 年的业绩不太可能比 1993 年有显著增长。
At this stage, the 1994 results are unlikely to show significant growth over 1993.
(国泰航空,1993年)
(Cathay Pacific, 1993)
对冲基金的优势语料库中出现的“助推语”部分源于这种需要缓和糟糕业绩公布的语气并解释挫折的原因。然而,这些助推语的出现,恰恰是在作者力求营造一种充满信心、笃定和乐观的整体印象的语境中。因此,在构建CEO形象时运用元话语的修辞手法是一把双刃剑。“助推语”使作者能够塑造权威、果断和信念坚定的可信形象,而“缓和语”则通过展现作者愿意直面残酷现实的意愿,即使这种坦诚是通过某种缓解措施来掩盖的,从而体现出个人的诚实和正直。
The predominance of hedges over boosters in the corpus is partially a consequence of this need to soften the announcement of poor results and account for setbacks. They occur, however, in an environment in which writers strive to project an overall impression of confidence, assurance and optimism. The rhetorical use of metadiscourse in the construction of a CEO’s ethos is therefore double-edged. Boosters allow writers to project a credible image of authority, decisiveness and conviction while hedges demonstrate personal honesty and integrity through a willingness to address hard realities, albeit behind a shield of mitigation.
三、情感诉求:营造情感共鸣
iii. Pathos: creating affective appeals
除了需要提出理性论证和塑造可信的人物形象之外,作者还必须关注文本对读者的预期效果,并运用情感诉求等元话语资源。尤其重要的是,他们需要考虑读者对论证的态度,以及他们是否认为这段话语与自身息息相关。显然,对于那些将其视为投资指南的人来说,CEO的信函会显得很有价值,但作者也必须积极地与读者展开对话,让他们参与到文本的信息传递中来。这种情感元素要求作者从读者的角度审视文本,关注他们的处境,理解他们的价值观和目标,并直接邀请他们做出回应。这种互动式元话语的使用表明作者已经考虑到了潜在读者。因此,它比那些旨在提升作者信誉度的策略更加以读者为中心。参与标记、态度标记和缓和语等类别,以及代词指称的操纵,有助于与读者建立关系,从而实现这种情感诉求。
In addition to the need to present a rational argument and a credible persona, writers also have to attend to the desired effects of their text on readers, drawing on the metadiscoursal resources of pathos. In particular, they need to consider readers’ attitudes to the argument and to their perception that the discourse is significant and germane to them personally. Clearly the CEO’s letter will seem relevant to those who look to it as a guide to investment, but writers also have to actively create a dialogue to involve their audience in the message of the text. This affective element involves the writer in looking at the text from the reader’s perspective, addressing their situation, empathizing with their values and goals, and directly inviting them to respond. The use of interactional metadiscourse demonstrates that the writer has taken the prospective reader into consideration. It is therefore more reader-centred than the strategies used to promote an ethos. The categories of engagement markers, attitude markers and hedges, together with the manipulation of pronoun reference, contribute to the development of a relationship with the reader which helps realize such affective appeals.
情感诉求的一个方面是作者对他们所讨论的内容进行个人评价,表达惊讶、赞同、愉悦、强调等等:
One aspect of affective appeals is where the writers provide a personal evaluation of what they are discussing, expressing surprise, agreement, pleasure, emphasis and so on:
(20) 幸运的是,在过去的几年里,我们充分利用了市场上涨的机会。
(20) Fortunately, in the past few years we have taken full advantage of the rising markets.
(厦门地产,1994年)
(Amoy Properties, 1994)
希望这些在潜力巨大的市场中的新举措能够为集团带来更多利润。
Hopefully these new ventures in a market with tremendous potential will bring more profits to the group.
(明报,1993)
(Ming Pao Daily, 1993)
这种性能水平的原因,更重要的是,120……
The reason for this level of performance and, more importantly, the 120 . . .
(太古,1993)
(Swire, 1993)
这些表达方式隐含着(或者说修辞上诉诸于)一个假设,即读者会以相同的方式体验话语,因此它们创造并强调了一系列共享的、不言而喻的目的和理解。这一点在我们观察CEO们如何使用参与标记词,特别是诸如must、have to、need和should之类的指令性词语时尤为明显,这些词语旨在使作者的目标和愿望与读者的目标和愿望保持一致。这些义务情态动词表达了“某事应该做”的信念,同时在修辞上预设了读者会同意这一观点:
These expressions carry (or rhetorically appeal to) an implicit assumption that the reader will experience the discourse in the same way, and so they create and emphasize a set of shared, taken-for-granted purposes and understandings. This is particularly clear when we look at the ways CEOs use engagement markers, and particularly directives such as must, have to, need and should, to align the goals and desires of the writer with those of the reader. These obligation modals express the belief that something should be done, while rhetorically presupposing that the reader will concur:
(21)必须向 客户提供快速响应、灵活性、创新性、物有所值,最重要的是,提高服务质量。
(21) Customers must be offered a speedy response, flexibility, innovation, value for money, and, above all, improved quality of service.
(巴克莱银行,1993年)
(Barclays, 1993)
与此同时,我们必须努力了解中国正在发生的事情,并做出相应的反应。
At the same time, it is essential that we should make a great effort to appreciate what is going on in China and respond accordingly.
(明报,1994年)
(Ming Pao Newspapers, 1994)
其他互动标记则更直接地用于构建作者与读者之间的关系。例如,问题明确地旨在将读者引入话语,使其成为对话的参与者(22a),而旁白会打断论证过程,对命题信息进行评论,直接向听众介绍话语本身(22b)。
Other engagement markers function more directly to build writer–reader relationships. Questions, for example, explicitly seek to draw the reader into the discourse as a participant in a dialogue (22a), while asides, which interrupt the argumentative flow to offer a comment on propositional information, address the audience directly about the discourse itself (22b).
(22)(甲)我们取得进展了吗?是的。我们还能做得更多吗?当然可以。而且我们打算这样做。
(22) (a) Have we made progress? Yes. Can we do more? Definitely. And we intend to.
(大通曼哈顿银行,1993年)
(Chase Manhattan, 1993)
(b)……但是成功的亚洲经济体——而且这类经济体的数量正在不断增加——表现出某些共同特征。
(b) . . . but successful Asian economies – and there are a growing number of them – display certain shared characteristics.
(香港银行,1993年)
(Hong Kong Bank, 1993)
这些手法的情感吸引力是通过与读者建立共同点来实现的,通过将自己展现为与读者有相似观点、兴趣和目标的人,促使读者对所讨论的观点表示赞同。
The affective appeal of these devices is achieved by demonstrating common ground with the reader, prompting agreement on the claims discussed by presenting oneself as a person with similar views, interests and objectives as the reader.
更明确地吸引受众的方式是,既要使话语个性化,又要通过使用第二人称代词直接与读者交谈,从而更紧密地调动读者的积极性:
A more explicit means of appealing to an audience is to both personalize the discourse and more closely involve readers by directly addressing them using second-person pronouns:
(23)在过去一年的所有新闻标题中,我们最喜欢的(也许也是你们最喜欢的)是报道联合碳化物公司是当年表现最好的股票的新闻……
(23) Of all the headlines of the past year our favorites, and perhaps yours, were the ones reporting that Union Carbide was the year’s best performing stock . . .
(联合碳化物公司,1992年)
(Union Carbide, 1992)
董事会对集团的未来充满信心,这是有充分理由的;你也应该如此。
The board has good reasons to be optimistic about the future of the group; and so should you, too.
(Elec 和 Eltek International Holdings,1994 年)
(Elec and Eltek International Holdings, 1994)
随着我们进入第三个时代,贵公司将在平稳过渡过程中发挥重要作用……
As we enter the third era, your company can be counted upon to play an important part in the smooth transfer . . . .
(中国电力公司,1993年)
(China Light and Power, 1993)
当自我提及与态度标记词搭配使用时,它也能有效地促进与读者建立联系。虽然第一人称代词也有助于建立可信度,但通过作者与赞扬者的配合,它们可以强调CEO的个人特质或感受,从而发挥重要的情感作用。这些例子证明了该策略的影响,通过比较上面的(24)和(20)式就可以看出:
Self-mention can also explicitly contribute to the development of a relationship with the reader when it collocates with attitude markers. While first-person pronouns also help to build credibility, through the writer’s alignment with boosters, they can play a significant affective role by emphasizing the CEO’s personal disposition or sensibilities. These examples demonstrate the impact of this strategy, which can be seen by comparing (24) with (20) above:
(24)当然,如果我们不加强国内基础,就无法实现我们的国际目标,我很高兴地说,我们在财政方面状况良好。
(24) We cannot, of course, achieve our international aims without strengthening our home base, and I am glad to say that financially we are in good shape.
(香港工程师学会,1994)
(HKIE, 1994)
我希望这将进一步提升集团在国际投资者和广大公众眼中的良好形象。
It is my hope that it will further enhance the good image of the Group both in the eyes of our international investors and the public at large.
(厦门地产,1994年)
(Amoy Properties, 1994)
同样地,虽然使用频率较低,但包容性的第三人称形式也通过使作者和读者的共同利益变得透明,从而增强了文本的说服力(25):
Similarly, although less frequently used, the inclusive third-person form also contributes to the persuasiveness of a text by making the shared interests of writer and reader transparent (25):
(25) 希望政府在未来很多年里没有理由进一步提高博彩税。
(25) Let us hope that Government sees no reason to increase betting duty further for many years to come.
(香港赛马会,1994年)
(Hong Kong Jockey Club, 1994)
董事们相信,我们公司在1994年能够保持稳健的增长势头。
The directors are confident that our company can maintain a solid growth momentum in 1994.
(李和冯,1993)
(Li and Fung, 1993)
策略性代词使用的效果在不同形式的代词一起使用时可以明显看出(26):
The effect of strategic pronoun use can be clearly seen where different forms are used together (26):
(26)我谨代表您,感谢所有为公司取得的成就做出贡献的员工。
(26) On your behalf also, I would like to thank all our workforce who have contributed to the results achieved by our company.
(雀巢,1993)
(Nestlé, 1993)
为了清晰起见,我将不同的元话语要素呈现为具有不同的修辞效果,但从这些例子中应该可以清楚地看出,这些要素可以同时发挥多种功能。这种重叠在使用互动标记来传达情感和可信度时尤为显著。表面特征的双重语用作用,以及作者同时发挥多种功能的愿望,意味着任何对这些要素的清晰区分都难以实现。两种功能可能会产生误导。例如,缓和语在此类文体中频繁出现,是因为它们既能建立信誉,又能诉诸情感:它们通过淡化对陈述真伪的承诺,有助于营造谨慎克制的氛围;同时,它们也通过表现出不愿断言观点,来表达礼貌和对读者的尊重。因此,首席执行官可能会弱化某个命题的表达,不仅是为了表达对其真伪的怀疑,也是为了传达一种谨慎和对读者的尊重态度(Myres,1989;Hyland,1998a)。由此可见,缓和语承认,断言很少是一种合适的说服手段。
For clarity I have presented different metadiscourse items as having distinct rhetorical effects, but it should be clear from the examples that devices can perform more than one function simultaneously. The overlap is particularly marked in the use of interactional markers to convey both affect and credibility. The dual pragmatic role of surface features, and the desire of writers to perform functions simultaneously, means that any clear differentiation between these two functions may be misleading. Hedges, for example, have a high frequency in this genre because they build both ethos and pathos: they help realize an ethos of cautious restraint by mitigating commitment to the truth of statements, and also signal courtesy and reader regard by demonstrating a reluctance to express views categorically. Thus a CEO might weaken the expression of a proposition not only to express doubt about its truth, but also to convey an attitude of tact and deference to the reader (Myres, 1989; Hyland, 1998a). Hedges thus acknowledge that a categorical assertion is rarely an appropriate persuasive resource.
在任何特定情况下,确定缓和语的主要语用功能往往很困难,因为缓和语通常既包含礼貌的含义,也包含谨慎的含义。最明显的“礼貌”用法似乎是,缓和语暗示作者不愿断言某个观点,但文本中并未明确说明这种不愿断言的原因。因此,在这些例子中,作者似乎无需过多谨慎:
Identifying the predominant pragmatic function of a hedge in any particular instance is often perilous as both courtesy and caution meanings are frequently intended. The clearest examples of ‘politeness’ uses would seem to be where the hedge suggests a reluctance to assert a proposition where reasons for such reluctance are not apparent in the text. Thus the writer seems to have little need for caution in these examples:
(27)事实上,这一年发生的两件事可以被视为该团体历史上的里程碑。
(27) Indeed, two events that occurred during the year might be regarded as milestones of the group’s history.
(Hopewell Holdings,1994)
(Hopewell Holdings, 1994)
……成员们可能已经意识到第三个国际组织……
. . . members are probably aware that a third international. . .
(香港赛马会,1994年)
(HK Jockey Club, 1994)
虽然大多数提及概率或作者对陈述真伪的承诺似乎也带有情感色彩,但这些例子中的作者只是以一种不带强势、深思熟虑的方式行事。他们试图表明,读者持有不同观点的权利得到了尊重。
While most references to probabilities or writer commitments to the truth of statements appear to also carry affective meanings, the writers in these examples are simply acting in a non-assertive, deliberate manner. They are attempting to show that the readers’ rights to alternative views are respected.
4.6 总结与结论
4.6 Summary and conclusions
在本章中,我试图通过重点阐述来展示元话语的描述性和解释性力量。它在现代说服性话语中实现古典修辞的吸引力方面发挥着关键作用。我们已经看到,达尔文如何在极具影响力的《物种起源》中运用元话语作为关键特征,从而塑造了一个可信且值得信赖的形象。我也展示了元话语在首席执行官们塑造自身及其公司形象的方式中普遍存在的程度。这些例子表明,那些对语言与学术和商业说服之间的关系感兴趣的人,很可能会在元话语的研究中发现许多有趣的内容。
In this chapter I have sought to demonstrate something of the descriptive and explanatory power of metadiscourse by highlighting its key role in realizing the appeals of classical rhetoric in modern forms of persuasive discourse. We have seen how Darwin deployed metadiscourse as a key feature in his highly influential The Origin of Species, enabling him to create a credible and trustworthy persona. I have also shown the extent to which metadiscourse is a ubiquitous feature of the way CEOs portray themselves and their companies. These examples suggest that those interested in the relationships of language to academic and business persuasion are likely to find much of interest in the study of metadiscourse.
本质上,修辞指的是针对那些无法获得正式、绝对证据的问题进行论证的活动。尽管达尔文在其论述中引用了大量数据和例证,但自然选择理论仍然只是一种假设,一种至今仍在不断受到挑战的最佳猜测。同样,首席执行官所掌握的数据和计划,往往被读者视为旨在最大限度获得股东“支持”的制度意识形态和企业宣传手段。本文所报告的技巧和分析有助于揭示有权势的人物如何构建在其活动领域内具有重大影响的话语,因此,这些技巧和分析或许有助于揭示在其他语境中发挥作用的显著特征。然而,可以肯定的是,进一步的研究将会表明,作者如何控制文本中互动关系的表达方式,对于文本的修辞成功与否,与文本的命题内容同样至关重要。
Essentially, rhetoric refers to reason-giving activity on issues about which there can be no formal, absolute proof. Despite the wealth of data and examples that Darwin brings to his discourse, the theory of natural selection remains a hypothesis, a best guess that continues to be challenged to this day. Similarly, the figures and plans marshalled by the CEO are often seen by readers as institutional ideology and corporate spin designed to achieve maximum shareholder ‘buy-in’. The devices and analyses reported here help to show how powerful figures create discourses which have considerable impact in their domains of activity, and so may be of interest in revealing the distinguishing features which operate in other contexts. It is certain, however, that further research will reveal that the ways writers control the expression of interactional relationships within a text are as vital to the rhetorical success of a text as its propositional content.
我详细阐述这些分析是为了阐明研究者如何开展元话语研究。然而,此类研究也有助于学术和商务沟通专业的学生培养更有效的修辞和语言表达能力,从而更好地适应他们未来的职业领域。此外,对有影响力的文本进行修辞分析,可以帮助读者更好地理解现代社会中普遍存在的科学和企业信息背后的策略。这些话语体现了英语日益增长的全球霸权,以及信息文本中日益浓厚的宣传文化暗流。因此,本文提出的此类分析可以帮助读者培养对书面说服的修辞意识。
I have elaborated these analyses to clarify how researchers undertake metadiscourse research. Such studies, however, may also help students of academic and business communication to develop a more effective rhetorical and verbal repertoire to better operate in the professional domains in which they will find themselves. The rhetorical analysis of influential texts, moreover, can help readers gain a better understanding of the strategies behind the scientific and corporate messages that are so prevalent in modern society. These discourses represent part of the growing global hegemony of English and the increasingly insistent undercurrent of a promotional culture in informative texts. Such analyses as those presented here can therefore help readers develop a rhetorical awareness of written persuasion.
笔记
Notes
1由 Lee Honeycutt 编辑的亚里士多德《修辞学》在线全文可搜索超文本版本可在以下网址获取:http://www.public.iastate.edu/%7ehoneyl/Rhetoric/index.html。
1 An on-line and fully searchable hypertext version of Aristotle’s Rhetoric compiled by Lee Honeycutt is available at http://www.public.iastate.edu/%7ehoneyl/Rhetoric/index.html.
2网上有很多达尔文《物种起源》的副本。其中一个可以在以下网址找到: http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/。
2 There are numerous copies of Darwin’s The Origin of Species available on the web. One can be found at: http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/.
元话语的核心特征在于其语境依赖性,即它与特定语境下使用者的规范和期望密切相关(Hyland,2000)。这种语境特殊性在元话语于不同文体中的分布方式上尤为明显,它帮助作者和发言者回应并构建语言使用的语境。由于元话语体现了作者的社会目的,因此它是一种社会行为,而不仅仅是一系列语言项目的堆砌。这意味着,元话语的使用会因受众、目的以及社会语境的其他方面而发生巨大变化。反过来,研究这种变化可以揭示使用模式的多样性,并帮助我们理解个体如何运用语言来定位和解读日常交际情境。本章将重点介绍此类研究的一些成果和见解。首先,我将简要介绍文体,然后探讨关键学术文体中的元话语如何体现作者对特定目的、受众和社会环境的回应。
A central aspect of metadiscourse is its context-dependency, the close relationship it has to the norms and expectations of those who use it in particular settings (Hyland, 2000). This contextual specificity is particularly apparent in the ways in which metadiscourse is distributed across different genres, assisting writers and speakers to respond to and construct the contexts in which language is used. Because metadiscourse represents the social purposes of writers it is a social act rather than simply a string of language items, and this means that its use will vary enormously depending on the audience, the purpose and other aspects of the social context. In turn, studying this variation reveals the diversity in patterns of use and helps us to understand the ways individuals use language to orient to and interpret routine communicative situations. In this chapter I will focus on some of the results and insights such studies have produced. I begin with a brief introduction to genre then go on to explore how the metadiscourse found in key academic genres reveals responses to particular writer purposes, audiences and social settings.
5.1 体裁的概念
5.1 The concept of genre
文体是指将文本归类在一起的术语,它代表了作者通常如何运用语言来回应反复出现的情境。这一概念基于这样的理念:一个社群的成员通常能够轻松地识别他们经常阅读的文本之间的相似之处,并能够借鉴他们反复阅读此类文本的经验。阅读、理解甚至写作这些文本相对容易。部分原因是写作是一种基于预期的实践:如果作者费心预判读者的预期,读者理解作者意图的可能性就会增加。这种对读者需求的预测是基于他们之前阅读过的同类型文本。我们认为某些选择代表了在熟悉的语境中完成任务的有效方式,正是通过反复使用这些约定俗成的形式,我们才能发展人际关系、建立社群并表达我们的想法和情感。因此,语言既根植于社会现实,又参与塑造这些现实。
Genre is a term for grouping texts together, representing how writers typically use language to respond to recurring situations. The concept is based on the idea that members of a community usually have little difficulty in recognizing similarities in the texts they use frequently and are able to draw on their repeated experiences with such texts to read, understand and perhaps write them relatively easily. This is, in part, because writing is a practice based on expectations: the reader’s chances of interpreting the writer’s purpose are increased if the writer takes the trouble to anticipate what the reader might be anticipating. Such predictions of reader needs are based on previous texts they have read of the same kind. We regard certain choices as representing effective ways of getting things done in familiar contexts and it is through our recurrent use of these conventionalized forms that we are able to develop relationships, establish communities and express our ideas and emotions. As a result, language is seen to be both embedded in social realities and helping to create those realities.
因此,体裁理论家将参与者之间的关系置于语言使用的核心,并假定所有成功的文本都会展现作者对其语境以及构成该语境一部分的读者的意识。由此可见,体裁是“个体社会行动者在其历史的界限和特定语境的约束下,并基于对现有体裁类型的了解而采取行动的结果”(Kress,1989:10)。尽管分析家们在强调文本本身或其反映和构建的社会语境方面有所不同(Johns,2002;Hyland,2004b),但他们都假定写作是对话性的(Bakhtin,1986)。这既是因为写作预设并回应积极的读者,也是因为它与其他文本建立联系。写作涉及借鉴我们通常遇到和熟悉的文本,因此,互文性(巴赫金,1986)的概念,即文本片段或文本惯例在其他文本中出现的方式,对文体理论产生了极其深远的影响。
Genre theorists therefore locate the relationships of participants at the centre of language use and assume that every successful text will display the writer’s awareness of its context and the readers who form part of that context. Genres, then, are ‘the effects of the action of individual social agents acting both within the bounds of their history and the constraints of particular contexts, and with a knowledge of existing generic types’ (Kress, 1989: 10). While analysts differ in the emphasis they give to either texts or the social contexts which they reflect and construct (Johns, 2002; Hyland, 2004b), they all assume that writing is dialogic (Bakhtin, 1986). This is both because it presupposes and responds to an active audience, and because it makes links to other texts. Writing involves drawing on the texts we typically encounter and are familiar with, and as a result the concept of intertextuality (Bakhtin, 1986), the ways that snatches of text or text conventions occur in other texts, has been extremely influential in genre theory.
其中一个影响因素是,分析者不再仅仅关注描述文本的相似性,而是探索不同语境对语言模式的限制。变异与相似性同等重要,因为文本沿着一个连续谱系分布,从核心体裁到边缘体裁,用户在特定情况下会做出选择(Swales,1990)。因此,体裁并非强加于用户的专制结构。我们能够经常性地、不假思索地识别文本之间的相似性和差异性,并达成足够的共识以成功地协商和解读意义,这一事实就证明了这一点。因此,虽然对体裁的共同认知对于理解文本至关重要,但它本身也并非不可或缺。不必假定体裁是固定不变的、单一的。体裁内部以及与其他体裁之间的差异,就体现在它们对元话语的运用上。
One influence has been that analysts are not simply concerned with describing text similarities, but with exploring the constraints which different contexts exercise on language patterns. Variation is just as important as similarity because texts spread along a continuum from core genre examples to those which are marginal, with users exercising options in particular cases (Swales, 1990). Genres are not, therefore, overbearing structures which impose uniformity on users. The fact that we routinely and unreflectively recognize similarities and differences between texts with sufficient agreement to successfully negotiate and interpret meanings demonstrates this. So while a shared sense of genre is needed to accomplish understanding, it is not necessary to assume that genres are fixed, monolithic and unchanging. One of the ways that genres vary, both internally and in relation to other genres, is in their use of metadiscourse.
5.2 元话语与体裁
5.2 Metadiscourse and genre
体裁理论基于这样的理念:文本之间存在相似或差异,并可被归类为不同的体裁。为了系统化这些分类,研究致力于刻画特定体裁的各种关键语言和修辞特征。有时,这需要关注其典型的修辞结构,并用规律性的语步或阶段序列来描述它们(Bhatia,1999;Butt等, 2000)。然而,越来越多的学者开始探索如何通过特定的修辞特征群来区分不同的体裁。
Genre theories rest on the idea that texts are similar or different and can be classified as one genre or another. In order to systematize these classifications, research has set out to characterize various key linguistic and rhetorical features of particular genres. Sometimes this has involved focusing on their typical rhetorical structures, describing them in terms of regular sequences of moves or stages (Bhatia, 1999; Butt et al., 2000). Increasingly, however, writers have sought to explore how genres are distinguished by clusters of specific rhetorical features.
元话语便是此类特征之一。它是文体分析的关键维度,因为它有助于揭示语言选择如何反映作者的不同写作目的、他们对受众的不同假设,以及他们与读者之间建立的不同互动方式。人们对文体元话语方面的兴趣日益浓厚,这源于对学术和专业写作中人际维度的关注。具体而言,这探讨了说服不仅通过表达观点来实现,而且还通过构建恰当的作者自我形象和协商既定的参与者关系来实现。学术写作领域中,以读者为导向对于实现修辞目标至关重要。尽管学术写作通常被认为主要以命题为主且不带个人色彩,但要说服学术读者相信其论点的可靠性,就意味着要做出读者通常认为具有说服力的语言选择。然而,“说服”的方式在不同的文体中却有所不同。
One such feature is metadiscourse. This is a key dimension of genre analysis as it can help show how language choices reflect the different purposes of writers, the different assumptions they make about their audiences, and the different kinds of interactions they create with their readers. Interest in metadiscoursal aspects of genre has been encouraged by a growing curiosity about the interpersonal dimensions of academic and professional writing. In particular, this addresses the ways that persuasion is not only accomplished through the representation of ideas, but also by the construction of an appropriate authorial self and the negotiation of accepted participant relationships. Academic writing is one domain where an orientation to the reader is crucial in securing rhetorical objectives. While often considered predominantly propositional and impersonal, the act of convincing an academic audience of the reliability of one’s arguments means making linguistic choices which that audience will conventionally recognize as persuasive. The means of ‘doing persuasion’, however, differ across genres.
例如,我们可以通过比较学术文本和社论来看出这一点。虽然这两种文体都旨在通过论证来达到说服的目的,但它们运用元话语的方式却各不相同。在一项比较研究中,Le (2004) 发现,证据性论证在学术文本中的主要功能是……《世界报》的社论旨在强调报纸的严肃性、精英主义和独立思考,而学术文本中的社论则使作者能够展示其研究与该领域早期研究的关联。同样,学术文本中经常使用自我提及来构建文本并呈现结论,而《世界报》社论中的第一人称(复数)则用于强化报纸自身对某一问题的立场。勒认为,这种差异与所构建的知识类型有关。学术知识的呈现方式相对客观,尽管它必然依赖于读者的参与;而社论中的知识则具有主观性,代表着报纸的立场。这些根本性的差异既区分了不同的文体,也有助于解释元话语使用上的差异。
This can be seen by comparing academic texts and editorials, for example. While both genres aim to persuade through argument, they each use metadiscourse in their own way. In a comparative study Le (2004) found that the main function of evidentials in Le Monde’s editorials was to emphasize the newspaper’s seriousness, elitism and independence of mind, while in academic texts they enabled writers to show how their own work relates to earlier work in the field. Similarly, self-mention in academic texts was often used to construct the text and present decisions, while the first person (plural) in Le Monde’s editorials was used to reinforce the newspaper’s own position on an issue. Le suggests that such differences are related to the different kinds of knowledge being constructed. Academic knowledge is presented as relatively impersonal, despite its necessary reliance on the audience’s participation in its construction, while in editorials knowle dge is subjective, representing the newspaper’s position. Such fundamental differences both distinguish the genres and help to explain the variations in metadiscourse use.
在本章的其余部分,我将重点关注各种类型的学术文本,并详细阐述元话语在该领域的一些关键体裁中所起的作用。
In the remaining sections of this chapter I will focus on academic texts of various kinds and elaborate the role that metadiscourse plays in a number of key genres in this domain.
5.3 学术研究文章中的元话语
5.3 Metadiscourse in academic research articles
研究论文对于学术知识的创造至关重要,其重要性不容低估。尽管电子期刊、电子邮件列表以及快速发展的科学领域中“通讯期刊”(Hyland,2000)层出不穷,研究论文仍然是大多数学者传播研究成果、建立声誉的主要途径。在研究论文中,作者向同行展示了其研究工作的相关性和创新性。他们在此汇集论点,这些论点将经历艰苦卓绝的同行评审和验证过程,最终获得社会认可,将信念转化为知识。研究论文仍然是学术界的主要文体:它是学术成就的摇篮,是知识的验证之地,是奖励的分配场所,也是学科权威得以行使的舞台。
The importance of the research article to the creation of academic knowledge cannot be overestimated. Despite the emergence of electronic journals and e-lists and the growth of ‘letters journals’ in the fast-moving sciences (Hyland, 2000), research papers are still the main means by which the majority of academics disseminate their work and establish their reputations. It is in research articles that writers exhibit both the relevance and the novelty of their work to colleagues. Here they assemble arguments that will undergo the arduous and exhaustive process of ratification and peer review to provide the social justification which transforms beliefs into knowledge. The research article remains the primary genre of the academy: the site where names are made, knowledge authenticated, rewards allocated and disciplinary authority exercised.
因此,研究论文总体上关注知识的创造,而这是通过与同事协商达成共识来实现的。关于阐释和论断。作者力求考虑读者,设想他们已知和需要了解的内容,并有效地与他们互动。他们不仅关注认知因素,也关注社会和情感因素,这使得分析超越了对文本概念维度的单纯关注,转向了文本在人际互动中的运作方式。本质上,学术论文的作者希望自己的论点既能被理解又能被接受。然而,由于缺乏独立客观的手段来区分观察和推测,实现这些目标变得复杂。对于数据,总是存在不止一种合理的解读,读者也始终可以选择拒绝作者的解释。
Research articles are thus broadly concerned with knowledge-making and this is achieved by negotiating agreement with colleagues about interpretations and claims. Writers try to consider their readers, imagine what they know and need to know, and engage with them effectively. They are not just concerned with cognitive factors, but also with social and affective elements, and this moves analysis beyond an interest in just the ideational dimension of texts to the ways they function interpersonally. Essentially, the writer of an academic article wants his or her argument to be both understood and accepted. But achieving these goals is complicated by the fact that there is no independent, objective means of distinguishing observation from conjecture. There is always more than one plausible reading for data, and readers always retain the option of rejecting the writer’s interpretation.
一、元话语与协商诉求
i. Metadiscourse and negotiating claims
这种对认可的需求揭示了研究论文中论证的脆弱性,以及读者在论证构建过程中所扮演的积极角色。元话语是作者应对其主张可能被否定的一种方式,它是一种旨在吸引读者、预见可能出现的反对意见或解读难题的干预。因此,元话语在学术话语中的作用在于凝聚支持、表达同侪情谊、解决难题并避免争论。读者对某些论断的反对主要来自两个方面。
This need for ratification reveals the vulnerability of arguments in research papers, and the active role readers have in their construction. Metadiscourse is one indication of a writer’s response to the potential negatability of his/her claims, an intervention to engage the reader and anticipate possible objections or difficulties of interpretation. Its role in academic discourse is therefore to galvanize support, express collegiality, resolve difficulties and avoid disputation. This reader opposition to statements comes from two principal sources.
首先,如果某个陈述不符合充分性条件(Hyland,1998a),即与读者对世界的认知不符,他们可能会拒绝接受。作者必须确保其主张与现实之间存在合理的关联,并运用其学科的认知惯例和论证形式。在此,元话语有助于阐明观点之间的关系,并以潜在读者可能认为恰当且令人信服的方式组织材料。因此,它体现了作者对读者的评估,以及作者对其理解需求、修辞预期和背景知识的假设。这就是互动式元话语的功能:它是一种介入,旨在引导读者做出与作者意图相符的解读。将各个命题明确地相互关联,并与其他文本联系起来,从而引导读者理解文本。
First, readers may reject a statement if it fails to meet adequacy conditions (Hyland, 1998a), that is, if it does not correspond to what the world is thought to be like. Writers have to ensure that their claims display a plausible relationship with reality using the epistemic conventions and argument forms of their disciplines. Here metadiscourse helps signal relationships between ideas and order material in ways that the potential audience is likely to find appropriate and convincing. It therefore represents the writer’s assessment of readers and his or her assumptions about their processing needs, rhetorical expectations and background understandings. This is the function of interactive metadiscourse, an intercession to cue interpretations which are consistent with the writer’s intentions, explicitly relating propositions to each other and to other texts to lead the reader through a text.
这个例子可以初步展现此类交互功能在研究论文中的作用(交互式元话语已加下划线):
This example gives some flavour of the role of such interactive features in a research paper (interactive metadiscourse is underlined):
(1) 我们的模型相比以往对失望和后悔的表征方法有几项改进。首先,我们提出的失望度量方法推广了贝尔(1985)的度量方法,后者仅适用于两种结果的彩票。其次,我们基于多属性偏好结构,将失望和后悔的概念正式整合到一个单一模型中。第三,独立性条件使我们能够简化模型的一般形式,并独立处理三个组成部分。这样,我们得到了一个基于明确且严格的偏好假设的简单可分离模型。这也使我们的研究区别于一些使用加性模型而未推导其含义的先前研究。第四,我们的模型既可用于选择前的决策评估,也可用于选择后的结果评估。本文重点关注后者,但我们在4.2节和附录中也讨论了前者。总之,我们的模型以清晰、直观和严谨的方式捕捉了失望和后悔对选择后评估的影响。现在我们简要讨论函数 U1、U2 和 U3 的其他选择。
(1) Our model offers several advances over previous representations of disappointment and regret. First, the measure of disappointment we propose generalizes Bell’s (1985) measure that is only applicable to two outcome lotteries. Second, we formally integrate the concepts of disappointment and regret into a single model based on a multi-attribute preference structure. Third, the independence conditions allow us to simplify the general form of our model and to treat the three components independently. In this way, we obtain a simple separable model based on explicit and rigorous preference assumptions. This also makes our study different from some previous studies that use additive models without deriving the implications. Fourth, our model can be used for both prechoice decision evaluation and post-outcome valuation. In this paper we focus on the latter, but we do address the former as well in 4.2 and the Appendix. In sum, our model captures the effects of both disappointment and regret on post-choice valuation in a clear, intuitive, and rigorous fashion. We now briefly discuss alternative choices for the functions U1, U2, and U3.
(营销)
(Marketing)
其次,要使陈述具有说服力,还必须考虑可接受性条件,并融入对互动因素的认知。元话语在此关注互动参与者的需求,作者需要塑造专业且可接受的形象,并与读者建立一种力求平衡研究者作为专家权威和作为学科服务者谦逊之间的关系。这主要通过权衡试探性和断言性,以及表达与数据、论点和受众之间恰当的关系来实现。掌握情境中恰当的修辞惯例至关重要。因此,作者的专业知识使其能够熟练地与读者沟通,展现出专业的人际交往能力,从而影响论证的有效性。以下简短的例子可以说明这些特点的说服力:
Second, to be persuasive statements also have to address acceptability conditions, incorporating an awareness of interactional factors. Metadiscourse here attends to the needs of the participants of the interaction, with the writer adopting a professionally acceptable persona and a relationship with readers which seeks a balance between the researcher’s authority as expert-knower and his/her humility as disciplinary servant. This is principally accomplished through weighting tentativeness and assertion, and the expression of a suitable relationship to one’s data, arguments and audience. Mastery of the situationally appropriate rhetorical conventions of one’s discipline thus enables the writer to address an audience with skill and exhibit a professional interpersonal competence which influences the effectiveness of the argument. Again, a brief example suggests the persuasive influence of these features:
(2) 虽然还需要进一步研究,但我们推测本研究中使用的新产品类型(即旨在帮助人们更方便地服用药物的产品)可能对这一结果有所影响。然而,值得注意的是,公司的企业社会责任(CSR)关联并未影响受访者对产品社会责任的认知。其次,或许更为重要的是,我们发现了企业评价与产品评价之间存在负相关关系,这看似与直觉相悖。鉴于其重要性,我们将在接下来的讨论中对此结果进行更详细的阐述。
(2) Although further research is needed, we suspect that the type of new product used in this study (i.e., one designed to enable people to take medicine more easily) may have contributed to this result. Note, however, that the companies’ CSR associations did not influence respondents’ perceptions of product social responsibility. Second, and perhaps more important, is the negative relationship we uncovered between the corporate evaluation and the product evaluation, a seemingly nonintuitive finding. Because of its importance, we address this result in greater detail in the following discussion.
(营销)
(Marketing)
二、研究论文研究
ii. A study of research papers
一项对微生物学、市场营销、天体物理学和应用语言学四个领域七种顶级期刊的28篇研究论文(总计16万字)的研究表明,预测读者反应并做出恰当的元话语选择至关重要(Hyland,1998b)。该语料库中出现了超过1万个元话语手段,平均每篇论文出现370次,即每15个词出现一个。表5.1显示,与第三章讨论的学位论文类似,作者更多地使用了互动式而非互动式的表达方式,其中缓和语和过渡语是最常用的元话语手段,其次是注释和证据。在后续一项针对八个学科的更大规模的互动式元话语语料库的研究中(Hyland,1999a),我发现了类似的结果,尽管每千字的元话语手段比例更高。
The importance of anticipating reader reactions and making appropriate metadiscourse choices is suggested in the findings of a study of 28 research articles from seven leading journals in each of Microbiology, Marketing, Astrophysics and Applied Linguistics, totalling 160,000 words (Hyland, 1998b). There were over 10,000 metadiscourse devices in this corpus, an average of 370 occurrences per paper or one every 15 words. Table 5.1 shows that, as in the dissertations discussed in Chapter 3, writers used more interactive than interactional forms, and that hedges and transitions were the most frequent devices followed by code glosses and evidentials. In a follow-up study of interactional metadiscourse in a larger corpus of articles in eight disciplines (Hyland, 1999a), I found similar results, although with higher proportions per thousand words.
表 5.1研究论文体裁中的元话语类别
Table 5.1 Metadiscourse categories in research article genre
交互式设备的普及凸显了通过指示话语组织和阐明命题联系和意义来引导阅读过程的重要性。尤其值得一提的是,所有作者都大量使用了过渡词,尽管很多推理过程都是通过语法编码而非明确表达的方式进行的:
The predominance of interactive devices emphasizes the importance of guiding the reading process by indicating discourse organization and clarifying propositional connections and meanings. In particular, all writers made considerable use of transitions, even though much of the reasoning was coded grammatically rather than explicitly:
(3)直觉上,我们会说它的温度高于无穷大。但这在数学上是无稽之谈……
(3) Intuitively, we would say that its temperature is higher than infinity. But this is mathematical nonsense, . . .
(物理)
(Physics)
可以看出,这是一种严谨的表征两个器件关联性的方法,因为它考虑了电磁模式之间的耦合。因此,即使两个谐振器彼此耦合,该计算也适用于它们之间的任何间距。
It can be noticed that this is a rigorous way to characterize the association of the two devices because the couplings between the electromagnetic modes are taken into account. So, this calculation is valid for any spacings between the two resonators, even if they are coupled to each other.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
然而,最常见的子类别是缓和语,占所有互动用法的一半以上,并且是排名靠前的项目中唯一不在互动类别中的项目:
The most frequent sub-category, however, was hedges, which constituted over half of all interactional uses and were the only items outside the interactive category among the top ranked items:
(4)行业内流动应是原行业创造就业机会的积极因素,但也可能是原行业消除就业机会的积极因素。
(4) Within-industry mobility should be a positive function of job creation within the origin industry, but possibly also of job elimination within the origin industry.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
(5)目前我们倾向于推测,图15所示的这类过程在返回并重新出现在眼外之前会经历两次反弹。这类过程可能由构成视网膜的视杆细胞和视锥细胞产生。
(5) At the moment we tend to conjecture that processes of the kind described in Fig. 15 are bounced twice before returning and re-emerging outside the eye. Such processes might be produced by the rods and cones constituting the retina.
(物理)
(Physics)
这不仅反映了其至关重要的重要性,而且也反映了其至关重要的重要性。在学术写作中,表达恰当的精确性固然重要,但更重要的是将论点建立在明确承认的主观性之上。将可能存在争议或辩驳的观点和断言视为偶然的、个人的,能够为其他立场留出空间。通过评估断言以表达适当的谨慎,使用限定性措辞有助于与持有不同观点的同行展开对话。总而言之,在研究论文中使用元话语主要体现了对精确、明确且谨慎地表达论点的关注。我将在第七章更详细地探讨这一文体。
This reflects the critical importance of not only conveying appropriate precision in academic writing, but also in grounding propositions in an explicitly acknowledged degree of subjectivity. Casting potentially controversial or disputable claims and assertions as contingent and individual allows the writer to make space for alternative positions. By evaluating assertions to express appropriate caution, hedges function to open a dialogue with peers who may hold other views. In general, then, the use of metadiscourse in research articles demonstrates a principal concern with expressing arguments precisely, explicitly and with due circumspection. I will return to this genre in more detail in Chapter 7.
5.4 科普文章中的元话语
5.4 Metadiscourse in popular science articles
近年来,面向普通读者报道最具新闻价值的科学发现的期刊数量显著增加。分析人士关注的点在于,为专业人士撰写的学术论文与面向大众的科普文章在目的、受众以及语言运用方面存在差异。正如上文所述,研究论文是构建科学知识的核心,而科学知识的构建正是通过对各种主张的协商来实现的。面向评论者、编辑和读者的文章,以及面向大众的文章,都力求将专业领域的问题与日常生活联系起来。作者选择的元话语是实现这些差异的关键途径。
The number of journals carrying reports of the most newsworthy findings of science for a lay audience has dramatically increased in recent years. What interests analysts about this is that academic papers written for specialists and popularized accounts of this research differ in their purposes and audiences, and so in their use of language. Research articles, as discussed above, are central to scientific knowledge constructed through the negotiation of claims with reviewers, editors and readers, while pieces written for the general public seek to link issues in the specialist domain to those of everyday life. The metadiscourse selected by writers to engage with their readers is a key way these differences are realized.
对一些人来说,科普读物是一种歪曲,是将科学简化以求易于理解,并宣扬一种乐观的进步理念;而另一些人则认为科学论文中的术语和技术细节是排外和精英主义的。这两种观点在1971年《新英格兰医学杂志》编辑进行的一项实验中得到了体现(Myers,1990:141)。这位编辑对晦涩难懂的免疫学论文感到沮丧,于是发表了一篇原创免疫学文章,以及一篇由《科学》杂志记者改写的版本。改写后的版本更加注重文章的结构、阐释和清晰度。之后,编辑收到了两类读者的来信:一类是普通内科医生,他们赞扬即使是复杂的主题也能变得通俗易懂;另一类是免疫学家,他们抱怨修改后的版本更难读懂,因为信息的位置与他们预期的不符。因此,两类读者都基于自身的需求、背景知识、话语预期和阅读目的,对撰写免疫学文章的最佳方式持有不同的看法。
For some, popularizations are a distortion, a dumbing down of science to suggest easy comprehension and an upbeat ideology of progress, while others regard the jargon and technicalities of science papers as exclusive and elitist. These two views are evident in responses to an experiment conducted by the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine in 1971 (reported in Myers, 1990: 141). Frustrated with incomprehensible papers in immunology, he published both an original immunology article and a version rewritten by a Science journalist who gave greater attention to organization, explication and clarity. The editor subsequently received letters both from general physicians applauding the fact that even difficult topics could be made accessible, and from immunologists complaining that the revised version was harder to read because information was not where they expected to find it. Both groups therefore had different views about the best way to write immunology based on their own needs, background knowledge, discourse expectations and reading purposes.
一、科普文章和研究论文
i. Popularizations and research papers
迈尔斯(1990)认为,这两种文体之间的一个关键区别在于它们呈现了截然不同的科学视角:科普文章往往侧重于研究对象本身,而专业论文则侧重于研究对象所采用的学科程序。专业论文通过遵循科学家的论证,将时间安排成一系列平行事件,并在句法和词汇中强调学科的概念结构,构建了他所谓的“科学叙事”。因此,这种话语体现了非人格化、知识累积建构和经验主义的假设。另一方面,科普文章呈现的是一种“自然叙事”,它关注的是物质、植物或动物本身,而非研究它们的科学活动。因此,科普文章的叙述是按时间顺序进行的,其句法和词汇描绘了一幅独立于科学之外的自然图景。实践中,科学家独自行动,只是观察自然。这些不同的语言选择不仅传达了研究和科学的不同含义,也意味着一种叙述的作者或读者很难理解另一种叙述。
Myers (1990) argues that a key difference between these two genres is that they provide contrasting views of science, with popularizations tending to focus on the objects of study and articles on the disciplinary procedures by which they are studied. The professional papers construct what he calls a ‘narrative of science’ by following the argument of the scientist, arranging time into a parallel series of events, and emphasizing the conceptual structure of the discipline in their syntax and vocabulary. The discourse thus embodies assumptions of impersonality, cumulative knowledge construction and empiricism. The popular articles, on the other hand, present a ‘narrative of nature’, focusing on the material, plant or animal itself rather than the scientific activity of studying them. Presentation in popularizations is therefore chronological, and the syntax and vocabulary paint a picture of nature which is external to scientific practices. Here the scientist acts alone and simply observes nature. These different language choices not only convey different meanings of both research and science, but also mean that writers or readers of one narrative cannot easily understand the other.
这种差异的一个明显例子体现在作者为论文选择的标题以及他们引言的方式上。迈尔斯以杰弗里·帕克的一篇专业论文和一篇科普论文为例进行说明。第一篇发表在《进化》杂志上,标题非常精准,开篇段落强调了研究方法与生物学家所期望的定量模型之间的联系。第二篇发表在《新科学家》杂志上,报道了同样的研究,标题突出了最能吸引普通读者的内容,并通过拟人化的动物行为来吸引他们。
A clear example of such differences can be found in the titles writers give to their papers and the ways that they introduce them. Myers gives these examples from a professional and a popular paper by Geoffrey Parker. The first, in the journal Evolution, has an extremely precise title and an opening paragraph which emphasizes a link between research methods and the promise of a quantitative model for biologists. The second reports the same research in the New Scientist, the title highlighting what is most interesting to lay readers and then hooking them by anthropomorphizing animal behaviour.
(6) 生殖行为和性行为的性质
(6) The reproductive behaviour and the nature of sexual
Scatophaga stercoraria L.的选择
selection in Scatophaga stercoraria L.
(双翅目:粪蝇科)。IX. 空间分布
(Diptera: Scatophagidae). IX. Spatial distribution of
受精率和雄性搜索行为的演变
fertilization rates and evolution of male search
生殖区域内的策略。
strategy within the reproductive area.
本系列论文旨在构建一个关于粪蝇(Scatophaga stercoraria)性选择及其对繁殖策略影响的综合模型。所采用的技术是将野外获得的生态和行为数据与实验室中已建立的精子竞争模型相结合。
The present series of papers is aimed towards constructing a comprehensive model of sexual selection and its influence on reproductive strategy in the dungfly, Scatophaga stercoraria. The technique used links ecological and behavioural data obtained in the field with laboratory data on sperm competition, for which a model has already been developed.
(7) 性和牛粪
(7) Sex and the cow pats
为什么孔雀的羽毛比它们较为保守的同伴更加华丽夺目?为什么雄伟的赤鹿为了争夺雌鹿群而互相残杀,甚至冒着被尖锐鹿角严重刺伤的风险?
Why do peacocks sport outrageously resplendent plumage compared with their more conservative mates? Why do majestic red deer stags engage in ferocious combat with each other for possession of harems, risking severe injury from their spear-point antlers?
二、科普中的互动元话语
ii. Interactive metadiscourse in popularizations
互动选择显然是跨文体意义转换的核心。通俗文学作家必须找到方法……向对科学发现而非科学程序感兴趣的受众介绍自然现象,这些受众虽然对科学感兴趣,但可能缺乏必要的领域知识。因此,在科普的修辞语境中,元话语成为向非科学受众构建科学工作框架的关键手段。上文(7)中,使用问题(互动标记)以及情感副词和形容词(态度标记)便是很好的例证。
Interactive choices are obviously central to these translations of meanings across genres. Writers of popularizations must find ways to present information about natural phenomena to an audience curious about scientific findings rather than procedures and which, while interested in science, may lack necessary domain knowledge. In the rhetorical context of the popularization, then, metadiscourse becomes a crucial means of framing scientific work for a non-science audience. In (7) above, the use of questions (engagement markers) and affective adverbs and adjectives (attitude markers) are good examples of this.
克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思(1990)比较了斯蒂芬·杰伊·古尔德撰写的关于同一主题的专业论文和科普论文,发现元话语在专业论文中出现得更为频繁。他们仅考察了少数特征,主要是互动选择,并未试图解释这些差异,但元话语的频率和功能存在体裁差异的原因显而易见。首先,科普文章通常比专业论文短,因此作者较少需要框架标记来引导读者理解冗长或复杂的文本。其次,由于这些文本是对其他论文的研究成果进行转述,因此很少提及论文内部的展开或顺序,所以过渡词也较少使用。这些论文中出现的连接词侧重于外部现象的行为,其作用是向非专业读者阐明现实世界的关系。也就是说,它们用于建立命题式的联系,而非话语式的联系,因此不具备元话语功能。
In a comparison of a professional and a popular paper on the same topic written by Stephen Jay Gould, Crismore and Farnsworth (1990) found that metadiscourse occurred more frequently in the professional genre. They investigated only a few features, mainly interactional choices, and did not attempt to explain these differences, but there are clear reasons why there may be genre variations in the frequencies and functions of metadiscourse. For one thing, popularizations tend to be shorter than professional papers and so writers have less need of frame markers to guide readers through a lengthy or complex text. Transitions are also less common because these texts report the work of other papers and therefore rarely refer to the internal unfolding or sequencing of the discourse itself. The conjunctions we find in these papers are focused on the behaviour of external phenomena, and function to make real-world relationships clear to non-specialist readers. That is, they are used to make propositional rather than discoursal connections and so do not function metadiscoursally.
其他元话语特征也出现在科普文章中,但其使用方式与研究论文中的有所不同。例如,证据标注的功能类似,但方式和形式略有不同。证据标注表明当前文本中材料的外部来源,并通过强调其来源的可信度来增强材料的可信度。在研究论文中,这些标注的部分功能在于认可和奖励特定的研究人员,而发表在同行评审期刊上的事实本身就赋予了他们可信度。因此,参考文献发挥着关键作用,将新的研究成果嵌入到社群生成的文献中,以证明其相关性和重要性(Berkenkotter 和 Huckin,1995;Hyland,2000)。
Other metadiscoursal features occur in popularizations but are used differently from those in research papers. Evidentials, for instance, perform similar functions but in a slightly different way and with a different form. Evidentials indicate the external origin of material in the current text and give credence to that material by drawing attention to the credibility of its source. In research articles these attributions partly function to recognize and reward particular researchers, with credibility conferred by the fact of publication in a refereed journal. References thereby perform the key role of embedding new work in a community-generated literature to demonstrate its relevance and importance (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995; Hyland, 2000).
另一方面,科普文章在介绍背景时往往更笼统地提及研究人员,而只指出与当前发展相关的特定科学家。通过其在机构中的职位来赋予他人信誉。以下示例说明了这种用途:
Popularizations, on the other hand, tend to refer to researchers more generally when ske tching background and only identify a particular scientist who is relevant to the current development, bestowing credibility through his or her position in an institution. These examples illustrate something of these uses:
(8)瑞士计算机科学家警告说,贪婪的计算机黑客使用开源 Linux 机器可能会从 Wi-Fi 热点窃取超过其应得份额的带宽。
(8) Greedy computer hackers using open-source Linux machines could steal more than their fair share of bandwidth from WI-FI hotspots, Swiss computer scientists have warned.
(《新科学家》, 2004年6月)
(New Scientist, June 2004)
“我们终于能够看到恒星爆发活动区域与这些长条状丝状结构之间的联系,”西北大学天文学家法哈德·尤瑟夫-扎德(Farhad Yusef-Zadeh)说道。他上周在丹佛举行的美国天文学会会议上公布了这一研究成果。科学家们此前推测,这些丝状结构与磁场有关,因为最早观测到的丝状结构与磁场方向一致。“但这个假设的问题在于,最近的图像显示,还有许多强度较弱、方向随机分布的丝状结构,”尤瑟夫-扎德说道。
‘We can finally see a link between areas of starburst activity and these long-linear filaments,’ said Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, a Northwestern University astronomer who presented the results last week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Denver. Scientists had theorized that the filaments were related to the magnetic field, because the first filaments spotted were aligned with it. ‘The problem with this hypothesis is that more recent images have revealed a population of weaker filaments oriented randomly,’ Yusef-Zadeh said.
(《科学美国人》, 2004年6月)
(Scientific American, June 2004)
研究人员承认 ,小行星、一颗未被观测到的伴星,或者CoKu Tau 4自身散发的热量和光线都可能导致了这一空隙的出现。但华盛顿卡内基研究所的天文学家艾伦·B·博斯表示,“行星的解释是最有可能的”。博斯并非该天体发现团队的成员,但他出席了新闻发布会。
An asteroid, an unseen companion star, or the heat and light from CoKu Tau 4 itself could have caused the gap, the researchers acknowledge. But ‘the planetary explanation is the most likely explanation,’ said Alan B. Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution in Washington. Boss was not a member of the discovery team but spoke at the briefing.
(《科学新闻》,第165卷:2004年6月23日)
(Science News, Vol. 165: 23 June 2004)
通俗读物与学术论文的另一个区别在于其报道方式的“显著特征”。在学术论文中,引用的资料大多以单一来源的摘要或结合多项研究的概括形式呈现。科学论文几乎从不使用直接引语,通常采用非完整引用结构,将引用的作者置于括号或脚注中(Hyland,2000)。相比之下,通俗读物采用更接近大众新闻的报道风格,使用直接引语(通常是采访引语),并大量使用“说”这一动词,这在学术论文中并不常见。以下摘录便体现了这些做法:
Popularizations also differ from articles in the ways in which this reporting is ‘manifestly marked’. In research papers imported material is overwhelmingly presented as a summary from a single source or as a generalization combining several different studies. Direct quotations are almost never used in science articles and non-integral structures, which relegate the cited author to parentheses or a footnote, are the norm (Hyland, 2000). In contrast, popularizations adopt a style of reporting more like popular journalism, employing direct, usually interview, quotes and making extensive use of the reporting verb say, a choice uncommon in the article genre. This extract illustrates these practices:
(9)在寻找毒素的过程中,间谍昆虫能到达人类无法到达的地方。至少,这是材料科学家杰夫·布林克(Jeff Brinker)的观点。位于阿尔伯克基的桑迪亚国家实验室。布林克和他的团队设计了一种方法,可以将这些令人厌恶的昆虫改造成隐蔽的环境哨兵,用于探测化学或生物制剂。蟑螂自然而然地成为了他们的下一个目标。“蟑螂生命力非常顽强,”布林克说,“而且它们喜欢探索各种角落和缝隙。” 但如何利用它们的这种狡猾特性呢?布林克表示,关键在于将经过基因改造的酵母细胞粘附在蟑螂身上,这些细胞在遇到有害物质时会发出荧光。与布林克合作的桑迪亚生物化学家苏珊·布罗齐克表示,与机械传感器相比,活细胞具有几个潜在优势:它们体积小、成本低,而且对周围环境极其敏感。但布林克指出,由活细胞制成的传感器很难在野外环境中保持活性。
(9) In the hunt for toxins, spy insects go where humans can’t. That, at least, is the vision of Jeff Brinker, a materials scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. Brinker and his team have devised a way to transform the loathed insects into stealthy environmental sentinels to detect chemical or biological agents. Roaches were a natural next step. ‘It’s a very durable beast,’ Brinker says. ‘Plus they tend to explore nooks and crannies.’ But how to put their wiliness to work? The key, Brinker says, is genetically altered yeast cells glued to the bug’s body that will glow when they encounter something harmful. Living cells have several potential advantages over mechanical sensors, says Susan Brozik, a Sandia biochemist working with Brinker. They’re small, cheap and exquisitely sensitive to their surroundings. But sensors made of living cells are difficult to keep alive out in the field, says Brinker.
(《大众科学》, 2004年3月)
(Popular Science, March 2004)
此类文章的另一个常见特征是术语注释。这些术语注释是元话语信号,用于澄清作者认为可能不熟悉的术语或用法。
Another common feature of this genre is code glosses. These are metadiscourse signals that work to clarify what the writer assumes may be an unfamiliar term or usage.
(10)去年,癌症治疗领域最引人瞩目的新闻是阿瓦斯汀(Avastin),这是一种治疗结直肠癌的药物,平均可延长患者五个月的生命。今年,科学家们正密切关注阿瓦斯汀的“后代”——那些基于相同原理但功能更强大的药物。阿瓦斯汀的作用机制是阻断肿瘤的血液供应,这一过程被称为抗血管生成。
(10) Last year, the big news in cancer therapy was Avastin, a colorectal cancer drug that extends life by an average of five months. This year, scientists are looking hard at the ‘children’ of Avastin, drugs that are based on the same principle but have additional bells and whistles. Avastin works by cutting off blood supply to tumors, a process known as anti-angiogenesis.
(《大众科学》, 2004年6月8日)
(Popular Science, 8 June 2004)
这些丝状结构长度在10到100光年之间,宽度在1到3光年之间。它们仅出现在银河系中心约900光年范围内的一个非常狭窄的区域,该区域聚集着大量新老恒星。一光年是光在一年内传播的距离,约为6万亿英里(10万亿公里)。
The filaments range from 10 to 100 light-years in length and 1 to 3 light-years across. They occur only in a very narrow area, within about 900 light-years of the galactic center, a region crowded with old and new stars. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).
(《科学美国人》, 2004年6月7日)
(Scientific American, 7 June 2004)
蝗灾的定义是:大量群居的蝗虫出现在至少两个主要地区。
A plague of locusts is defined as a large, gregarious population present in at least two major regions.
(《新科学家》, 2004年6月8日)
(New Scientist, 8 June 2004)
在这些例子中,通过元话语的帮助,一些可能不熟悉或理解不透彻的术语或概念变得清晰明了。
In these examples terms or concepts which may be unfamiliar or understood only loosely are made clear by the helpful addition of metadiscourse.
三、科普中的互动元话语
iii. Interactional metadiscourse in popularizations
科普文章最显著的特点在于其对互动元话语的运用,尤其体现在作者明确表达自身对材料的态度上。克里斯莫尔和法恩斯沃思(1990)发现,与专业论文相比,古尔德的科普文章中较少使用缓和语气和夸张语气,而更多地使用了态度标记和他们所谓的“评论”,这一功能与我提出的“参与标记”(见第三章)类别有所重叠。
Popular science articles are most obviously distinctive in their use of interactional metadiscourse, and particularly in the ways that writers make their attitudes to material explicit. Crismore and Farnsworth (1990) found fewer hedges and boosters in the Gould popularization compared with the professional paper and more attitude markers and what they call ‘commentary’, a function which overlaps with my category of ‘engagement markers’ (see Chapter 3).
认知手段允许作者对命题的状态进行评述,是研究文体的关键特征,因为它们对于与可能持怀疑态度的读者沟通知识主张至关重要。缓和语和增强语体现了作者对命题真伪的信心程度,展现了科学谨慎与确信之间的适当平衡,同时也反映了作者对读者的态度。知识主张必须谨慎处理,因此作者必须对自己的命题投入令人信服的信心,同时避免夸大其词,以免招致读者对其论点的否定。相比之下,科普文章由于对事实的态度不同,包含更高比例的未经修正的断言。对于科学记者而言,缓和语和增强语会通过强调其真假的不确定性来降低陈述的重要性和新闻价值。
Epistemic devices, which allow the writer to comment on the status of propositions, are key features of research genres as they are crucial to negotiating knowledge claims with a potentially sceptical audience. Hedges and boosters carry the writer’s degree of confidence in the truth of a proposition, displaying an appropriate balance between scientific caution and assurance, but they also present an attitude to the audience. Knowledge claims have to be carefully handled, so writers must invest a convincing degree of assurance in their propositions while avoiding overstating their case and risking inviting the rejection of their arguments. Popularizations, in contrast, contain a higher proportion of unmodified assertions because of a different attitude to facts. For the science journalist, hedges and boosters simply reduce the importance and news value of a statement by drawing attention to its uncertain truth value.
法恩斯托克(Fahnestock,1986)将这种研究成果向大众传播的转化描述为一种提升论断重要性的过程,旨在强调其独特性、稀有性或原创性。她举例说明了《科学》杂志上发表的一篇关于数学能力纵向研究的论文,其结论是如何被两家大众杂志改编的。原文如下(含限定性内容已加下划线):
Fahnestock (1986) has described this transformation of research into popular accounts as an upgrading of the significance of claims to emphasize their uniqueness, rarity or originality. She illustrates this by showing how the qualified conclusions from an article in Science, reporting a longitudinal study of mathematical aptitude, were transformed by two popular magazines. The original research article looked like this (with hedges underlined):
(11) 我们倾向于认为,男性在数学成绩和数学态度上的性别差异源于其更强的数学能力,而这种更强的数学能力又可能与男性在空间任务中更强的数学能力相关。这种男性优势可能是内生变量和外生变量共同作用的结果。然而,我们也意识到,我们的数据与许多其他假设相符。然而,关于选课差异的假设并未得到证实。此外,将男孩与女孩的社会化过程视为数学性别差异的唯一合理解释似乎也为时尚早。
(11) We favour the hypothesis that sex differences in achievement in and attitude toward mathematics result from superior male mathematical ability, which may in turn be related to greater male mathematical ability in spatial tasks. This male superiority is probably an expression of a combination of both endogenous and exogenous variables. We recognise, however, that our data are consistent with numerous alternative hypotheses. Nonetheless, the hypothesis of differential course-taking was not supported. It also seems likely that putting one’s faith in boy-versus-girl socialisation processes as the only permissible explanation of the sex difference in mathematics is premature.
(Benbow 和 Stanley,1980)
(Benbow and Stanley, 1980)
然而, 《新闻周刊》 (12) 和《时代周刊》(13) 对这项研究的报道却丝毫没有流露出这种犹豫不决的态度。相反,它们强化了这些论断的确定性,从而增强了报道的影响力:
Reports of this research in Newsweek (12) and Time (13), however, display none of this tentativeness. Instead they amplify the certainty of the claims and thereby increase the impact of the story:
(12)作者的结论:“在数学成就和对数学的态度上的性别差异是由于男性数学能力更强造成的”。
(12) The authors’ conclusions: ‘Sex differences in achievement and in attitude toward mathematics result from superior male mathematical ability’.
(13)根据约翰·霍普金斯大学博士候选人卡米拉·佩尔松·本博和心理学家朱利安·C·斯坦利的说法,男性天生比女性更有数学能力。
(13) According to its authors, Doctoral Candidate Camilla Persson Benbow and Psychologist Julian C. Stanley of Johns Hopkins University, males inherently have more mathematical ability than females.
换句话说,在科普中消除含糊其辞和夸大其词的成分,会增加主题的重要性和新闻价值,使素材更具吸引力,从而吸引更广泛的受众。
In other words, the elimination of hedges and boosters in popularizations adds to the significance and newsworthiness of the subject, glamorizing material for a wider audience.
在科普作品中,互动意义主要通过态度和参与度标记来传达,这些标记表明了作者对素材的情感反应,指出了重点,并鼓励读者参与到主题中来。与研究论文中的态度标记不同,在研究论文中,这些标记代表了作者与学科共同体成员所共有的态度和价值观,而在科普作品中,态度标记则有助于营造一种非正式的语气,并强调素材的易读性。这些态度是感兴趣的普通读者可能持有的态度,而不是作者自身的态度。
Interactional meanings are largely conveyed through attitude and engagement markers in popularizations, indicating the writer’s affective responses to material, pointing out what is important, and encouraging readers to engage with the topic. Unlike their role in research papers, where they signal the writer’s attitudes and values shared with other members of a disciplinary community, attitude markers in this genre help to impart an informal tone and underline the accessibility of the material. The attitudes expressed are those which the interested lay reader might be expected to hold, rather than the writer:
(14)数十亿只体型庞大、笨拙、红眼睛的昆虫 破土而出,蜕皮成虫后,便会唱起震耳欲聋的情歌。
(14) After digging their way out and molting into adults, billions of the big, clumsy, red-eyed insects will sing their earsplitting love songs.
(《科学美国人》, 2004年7月)
(Scientific American, July 2004)
好消息是,斯德哥尔摩大学的弗雷德·伍尔夫观察到,墨西哥湾的死区每年冬天都会消失。在他工作的波罗的海东部,永久性死亡区面积达10万平方公里。波罗的海蓝藻的大量繁殖也导致海滩定期关闭和鱼类死亡。
The good news is that the Gulf’s dead zone disappears each winter, observes Fred Wulff of the University of Stockholm. In the eastern Baltic Sea, where he works, a permanent dead zone covers up to 100,000 square km. Nasty blooms of bluegreen algae in the Baltic also lead to regular beach closures and fish kills.
(《今日科学》, 2004年6月)
(Science Today, June 2004)
互动标记明确地引导读者有选择地集中注意力或将他们纳入文本之中。虽然科学研究文章大量使用祈使句来达到此目的,但它们几乎从不使用其他形式,例如第二人称代词、疑问句和旁白(Hyland,2001a)。然而,这些形式在科普文章中却相当常见,如下例所示:
Engagement markers explicitly address readers to selectively focus their attention or to include them in the text. While science research articles make extensive use of imperatives for this purpose, they almost never include other forms, such as second-person pronouns, questions and asides (Hyland, 2001a). These forms are quite common in popularizations, however, as can be seen from the following examples:
(15)对大多数人来说,将纳米技术应用于电子电路的概念似乎带有浓厚的未来感。事实上,如果你使用过近几年生产的个人电脑,那么你的工作很可能就是由具有纳米级特征的半导体器件完成的。
(15) For most people, the notion of harnessing nanotechnology for electronic circuitry suggests something wildly futuristic. In fact, if you have used a personal computer made in the past few years, your work was most likely processed by semiconductors built with nanometer-scale features.
(《大众科学》, 2004年7月)
(Popular Science, July 2004)
但是,像卡片分类测试结果不理想这种更微妙的问题又该如何解释呢?毕竟,也许聪明的大学生往往只少量吸食大麻,而其他人则大量吸食。在这种情况下,卡片分类测试的结果可能与大麻本身关系不大。
But what about subtler problems like the card sorting deficiencies? After all, it might just be that smart college students tend to smoke lightly while others smoke heavily. In which case the card sorting results may have little to do with marijuana.
(《新科学家》, 1998年2月)
(New Scientist, February 1998)
研究人员周日表示,尽管新的靶向疗法并不能带来奇迹般的治愈,但它们正逐步帮助癌症患者延长寿命。他们正在学习如何将最佳的新型靶向疗法与传统药物结合使用,从而为癌症患者争取几个月甚至几年的额外生命——这对于那些希望活到孩子毕业或结婚的患者来说意义重大。
Little by little, new targeted therapies are helping cancer patients live longer, even if they do not offer miraculous cures, researchers said on Sunday. They are learning how to combine the best new targeted therapies with older drugs to eke out a few extra months or even years for cancer patients – which can mean a lot to a patient hoping to live long enough to see a child graduate or marry.
(《大众科学》, 2004年7月)
(Popular Science, July 2004)
因此,作者们出于不同目的呈现相同素材的方式存在显著差异,这解释了科普作品中使用的各种元话语选择。在这种体裁中,信息被呈现为具有新闻价值,这意味着作者运用元话语选择赋予其事实地位,将其与现实生活中的问题联系起来,并将其呈现为与读者相关,而读者可能对得出结果的方式或围绕这些结果的争议不太感兴趣。
There are, then, distinctive differences in the ways that writers set out the same material for different purposes and these account for the range of metadiscourse options used in popularizations. In this genre, information is presented as newsworthy, which means writers’ metadiscourse choices are used to invest it with factual status, relate it to real-life concerns, and present it as relevant to readers with perhaps little interest in the ways that findings were arrived at or in the controversies surrounding them.
5.5 入门教材中的元话语
5.5 Metadiscourse in introductory textbooks
我们在研究论文和科普读物中看到的这种对语境敏感的元话语运用,同样也出现在学术界的主要教学体裁——本科教材中。教材是学生习得学科概念和分析方法的主要途径之一,在学习者对学科的体验和理解中扮演着核心角色。它们不仅帮助学生拓展知识领域,同时还提供了一个连贯有序的学科边界、价值和实践图景。因此,教材被视为当前范式和公认事实的保守典范,传递着一种稳定和权威的意识形态形象。
The same context-sensitive deployment of metadiscourse we have seen in research articles and popularizations is also found in the major pedagogic genre of the academy, the undergraduate textbook. Textbooks represent one of the primary means by which the concepts and analytical methods of a discipline are acquired, playing a central role in learners’ experiences and understandings of a subject. They extend competence into new areas of knowledge for students while simultaneously providing a coherently ordered view of the boundaries, values and practices of their discipline. They are, then, seen as the conservative exemplars of current paradigms and acknowledged fact, conveying an ideological representation of stability and authority.
与研究论文(知识在其中被构建和证实)或科普读物(知识被转化为面向普通读者的新闻)不同,教科书被广泛视为成文事实和学科正统观念的宝库,是某一学科中已被驯服和接受的理论的集中地(Hewings,1990;Myers,1992)。巴赫金(1981:427)将其称为“非对话式”话语:它因其对现实的绝对定义而享有特权。因此,尽管研究论文处于新知识的前沿,教科书却试图将过去文本的纷繁复杂简化为单一的权威声音。这种将教科书仅仅视为面向易受影响的本科生的未经质疑的事实汇编的观点,意味着它们作为学术著作的价值常常被低估,学者们也难以因编写教科书而获得机构认可。然而,实际上,教科书既是一种教学体裁,也是一种专业体裁,它既代表了公认的观点,也为作者提供了一个表达的平台。向专家和新手传播他们学科的理念(Swales,1995:6;Hyland,2000)。
Unlike research articles, where knowledge is forged and confirmed, or popularizations, where it is transformed into news for a lay readership, textbooks are widely regarded as repositories of codified facts and disciplinary orthodoxy, the place where we find the tamed and accepted theories of a discipline (Hewings, 1990; Myers, 1992). Bakhtin (1981: 427) refers to this as ‘undialogized’ discourse: privileged in its absolute definition of reality. Thus while the research article is at the cutting edge of new knowledge, the textbook attempts to reduce the cacophony of past texts to a single voice of authority. This view of textbooks as merely a compilation of uncontested facts for impressionable undergraduates means that they are often undervalued as scholarship, with academics gaining little institutional credit for producing them. In reality, however, textbooks are both a pedagogic and a professional genre, representing accepted views while providing a medium for writers to disseminate a vision of their discipline to both experts and novices (Swales, 1995: 6; Hyland, 2000).
这些语境要求意味着,教科书的写作内容与学术论文大相径庭,作者在选择元话语特征时必须敏锐地意识到这种目的和受众的变化。教科书作者的主要目的是阐述学科既有的观点和理论,并建立足够的权威性,引导学习者进入一个全新的文化素养世界。然而,与此同时,他们也不能显得过于说教或高人一等,因为在实现这些目的的过程中,作者“声音”的合理性与文本的易读性同等重要。就受众而言,作者必须兼顾学术话语和学科内容经验有限的学生,同时也不能忽视那些熟悉该领域专业概念框架的同行。
These contextual imperatives mean that what can be said, and what needs to be said, differs considerably from research papers, and the writer’s choice of metadiscourse features needs to be sensitive to such changed purposes and audiences. The primary purpose of textbook writers is to set out the established views and theories of the discipline and to claim sufficient authority to initiate learners into a new world of cultural competence. At the same time, however, they must not appear too uncompromisingly didactic or superior, as the reasonableness of the author’s ‘voice’ is as important as the accessibility of the text in achieving these purposes. With respect to audience, writers must address students with limited experience of academic discourse and disciplinary content while not ignoring professional peers who are familiar with the specialized conceptual frameworks of the field.
一、大学教科书和研究论文中的元话语:概述
i. Metadiscourse in university textbooks and research papers: an overview
制定权威经典所涉及的互动显然不同于在研究论文中提出论点和反驳解释,因此元话语的使用方式也截然不同。一项研究比较了21本核心本科入门教材中的章节与来自相同三个学科的研究论文,发现元话语的总体频率相似,但其具体使用方式却存在显著差异(Hyland,1998b)。表5.2显示,论文中互动式和交互式元话语的使用大致平衡,而教材则绝大多数倾向于互动式元话语。
The interactions involved in setting out an accredited canon are clearly not those of presenting claims and disputing interpretations in research articles, and so once again metadiscourse uses are different. A study comparing a chapter from each of 21 core introductory undergraduate coursebooks with research articles from the same three disciplines found similar overall frequencies of metadiscourse, but considerable variations in its use (Hyland, 1998b). Table 5.2 shows the articles had a rough balance between interactive and interactional forms, while the textbooks overwhelmingly favoured interactive.
表 5.2元话语类别排名(Hyland,1998b)
Table 5.2 Ranked metadiscourse categories (Hyland, 1998b)
从子类别来看,用于辅助理解的修辞手法,例如过渡词、术语解释和内指标记,在教科书中更为常见;而用于辅助说服的修辞手法,例如缓和语气词、增强语气词、证据和自我提及,在文章中更为常见。两类读者的知识基础差异迫使作者采用不同的元话语模式。过渡词的使用频率极高。教科书中最常见的手段是阐明命题之间的关系和联系,从而引导阅读过程;而文章中最常见的元话语特征是使用缓和语,这表明区分事实与观点以及仔细评估断言的重要性。
Looking at the sub-categories, devices used to assist comprehension such as transitions, code glosses and endophoric markers were more frequent in the textbooks, while those typically used to assist persuasion, such as hedges, boosters, evidentials and self-mention, were more frequent in the articles. The disparate knowledge bases of the two audiences compels writers to employ different patterns of metadiscourse. Transitions were overwhelmingly the most common device in the textbooks, guiding the reading process by clarifying relationships and connections between propositions, while hedges were the most frequent metadiscourse feature in the articles, demonstrating the importance of distinguishing fact from opinion and of evaluating assertions carefully.
在一项更深入的研究中,我分析了八个学科推荐本科教材中七个章节的元话语,语料库包含50万词(Hyland,2000)。元话语的总体出现频率与之前的研究相似,但更大的语料库呈现出不同的子类别模式,包含更多互动特征。表5.3显示,该文本集中出现了更多缓和语气词和互动标记,并且这些词是继过渡词之后出现频率最高的语用手法。
In a more detailed study, I looked at metadiscourse in seven chapters from recommended undergraduate textbooks in eight disciplines, a corpus of 500,000 words (Hyland, 2000). The overall frequency of metadiscourse was similar to the earlier study, but the larger corpus produced a different pattern of sub-categories, with more interactional features. Table 5.3 shows that there were far more hedges and engagement markers in this collection of texts, and that after transitions, these were the most frequent devices overall.
表 5.3 8 个学科的 56 本教材中的元话语(Hyland,2000)
Table 5.3 Metadiscourse in 56 coursebooks in 8 disciplines (Hyland, 2000)
二、教科书中的互动元话语
ii. Interactive metadiscourse in textbooks
教科书中互动式元话语的盛行凸显了作者对读者保持信息畅通的重视,他们希望读者清楚地了解自己所处的位置以及接下来的内容。因此,作者在选择读者应该了解的内容以及需要详细阐述的内容时,都经过了深思熟虑。这一点在框架标记(用于构建话语结构)和内指标记(用于引导读者查阅章节、插图、论点等)的使用上尤为明显。
The dominance of interactive metadiscourse in the textbooks underlines writers’ regard for keeping readers informed about where they are and where they are going. As such they represent careful decisions about what the audience can be expected to know and what needs to be spelt out. This is particularly clear in the use of frame markers to structure the discourse (16) and endophoric markers (17) to refer readers to sections, illustrations, arguments and so on.
(16)本章介绍布尔代数的基本定理和运算……(电子工程教材)
(16) In this chapter we introduce the fundamental theorems and operations of Boolean algebra . . .(Electronic Engineering TB)
我们将根据子囊和子囊果的结构,将小囊菌分为三大类进行简要介绍。
The Ascolichens will be briefly considered under three large groups corresponding to the structure of their asci and ascocarps.
(生物学结核病)
(Biology TB)
本章重点讨论组织方面的问题,而不是影响战略决策的个人因素……
This chapter focuses on organizational matters rather than on personal factors that affect strategic decisions . . .
(市场营销 TB)
(Marketing TB)
(17)这与我们在第一章开头给出的例子非常相似。
(17) This is very much like the example we gave above at the beginning of chapter 1.
(应用语言学教材)
(Applied Linguistics TB)
正如我们在第 9 章中所看到的,新大陆的发现为第一个要求提供了强大的推动力:大量的黄金和白银的流动导致了西欧货币经济的出现。
As we saw in Chapter 9, the discovery of the New World gave a powerful impetus to the first requirement: the great flow of gold and silver led to the emergence of a money economy in Western Europe.
(社会学TB)
(Sociology TB)
在前文中,我们演示了如何使用相对常规的积分程序来获得具有分布载荷的梁的剪力图和弯矩图。
In the foregoing section we demonstrated how the relatively routine procedure of integration could be used to obtain shear-force and bending-moment diagrams for beams with distributed loads.
(物理TB)
(Physics TB)
这些功能也是框架标记是其他体裁的关键特征,但在实现方式上存在差异。例如,在另一种教学体裁——实验室演示中,Garcia 和 Marco (1998) 发现,框架标记通常用于转换话题 (18) 或在演示者进行实验时指示步骤 (19)。以下来自他们数据的例子说明了这些作用:
These functions are also a key feature of other genres, but there are differences in preferred forms of realization. In another pedagogic, but oral, genre, the laboratory demonstration, for instance, Garcia and Marco (1998) found that frame markers are often used either to shift the topic (18) or to indicate steps in an experiment as the demonstrator moves through a process (19). These examples from their data illustrate these roles:
(18)这是一个连接在压力表上的钢球。由于它是刚性的,内部气体的量和体积将保持不变。我们唯一要改变的就是压力和温度。让我们试一试,看看会发生什么。
(18) This is a steel ball that is attached to this pressure gauge. Now, because it’s rigid, the amount of gas inside and the volume of the gas will remain the same. The only things we’ll vary are the pressure and temperature. Let’s try it and see what happens.
(19) 这次我们要改变体积和压力,温度保持不变。现在我要做的就是松开活塞,看看它能否上升到这个标记处,这个标记代表体积的两倍。好的,我们松开活塞。
(19) This time we’re going to vary the volume and the pressure, again leaving temperature constant. Now what I’m gonna do is release the piston and see if it can come up to this mark here which refers to double of the volume. All right, so we release the piston.
显然,虽然这种体裁的“知识传授”功能与教科书的目的相似,但口头模式的即时性鼓励了更多的参与,并选择了更具吸引力的特征来传递材料。
Clearly, while the ‘knowledge imparting’ function of this genre is similar to the purpose of textbooks, the immediacy of the oral mode encourages greater involvement and the choice of more engaged features to deliver material.
这种高频出现的元话语元素,用来标记互动式和口语化的风格,也体现在诸如疑问句和祈使句等修辞手法的使用上。它们在起到参与标记的作用的同时,也通过指涉话语的其他部分和其他话语,起到内指的作用,提醒听众当前讨论中的重要事项(这些例子来自 Garcia 和 Marco,1998:282-4):
This high frequency of metadiscourse elements to mark an interactive and verbal style is also apparent in the use of devices such as questions and imperatives. While functioning as engagement markers, they also act as endophorics by referring to other parts of the discourse and to other discourses, reminding hearers of matter salient to the current discussion (these examples from Garcia and Marco, 1998: 282–4):
(20)我还要再次使用液氮。记住,它非常冷,零下196摄氏度。
(20) I’m going to make use of this liquid nitrogen again. Remember, it’s very cold, minus 196 degrees C.
那么,你觉得这意味着添加了多少气体?我猜你会说气体量翻倍了,对吧?这是直觉上的猜测。你说得对。如果气体量翻倍,压力也会翻倍。那么,当我们提高球内气体的温度时,压力会发生什么变化呢?
Now, what do you think that means in terms of the amount of gas added? I bet you said it doubled the amount of gas, huh? That’s the intuitive guess. And you’re right. If we double the amount of gas we double the pressure. So as we increase the temperature of the gas inside the ball, what happens to the pressure?
我们还发现,在研究论文中,元话语的互动形式也呈现出不同的使用方式。例如,在论文中,内指标记几乎完全用于指代表格和图表,而在教科书中,内指标记则用于指向解释性材料或将论点与更广泛的背景联系起来。框架标记在教科书中定期出现,用于为读者构建论述框架。而在论文中,框架标记往往集中在引言部分(用于阐明研究的总体目的)和讨论部分(用于组织要点列表)。
We also find interactive forms of metadiscourse being used differently in research articles. Endophoric markers, for instance, were almost exclusively used to refer to tables and graphs in the articles, while pointing to explanatory material or relating claims to a wider context in the textbooks. Frame markers occurred in textbooks at regular intervals to structure the discourse for the reader. In the articles they tended to cluster in introductions, where they acted to specify the overall purpose of the research, and in discussion sections, where they served to organize lists of points.
换言之,这些教科书主要运用元话语来减轻新手理解新命题材料的负担,并更全面地呈现不熟悉的内容。这一点在代码注释的使用上也显而易见,教科书中的代码注释不仅篇幅更长,而且更倾向于指导而非简单的解释。这些技巧有助于传达读者可能难以理解的含义,虽然在两种文体中,这些注释大多被标记为示例,但教科书中包含更多有助于理解的案例,这些案例通过提供定义(21)或阐述某个陈述(22)来辅助理解。
In other words, metadiscourse was principally employed in these textbooks to reduce the weight of new propositional material for novices and present unfamiliar content more comprehensively. This is also apparent in the use of code glosses which were both more extensive in the textbooks and tended to instruct rather than simply clarify. These devices help convey meanings thought to be problematic for readers, but while mainly labelled as examples in b oth genres, the textbooks contained more cases which aided interpretation by either providing a definition (21) or elaborating on a statement (22).
(21)岩生地衣可能在土壤形成过程中发挥重要作用……
(21) Saxicolous (growing on rocks) lichens are probably instrumental in initiating soil . . .
(生物学结核病)
(Biology TB)
湖沼学家(专门研究淡水系统的生物学家)开始研究……
. . . limnologists (biologists specializing in freshwater systems) began to examine . . .
(生物学结核病)
(Biology TB)
(22)跨文化差异是一个主要障碍——即在认知和情感上理解哪些正式程度是合适的或不合适的。
(22) Cross-cultural variation is a primary barrier – that is, understanding cognitively and affectively what levels of formality are appropriate or inappropriate.
(应用语言学教材)
(Applied Linguistics TB)
内部企业分析要求组织确定其资源(财务、人力和技术、有形资产)……
Internal corporate analysis requires the organization to identify its resources (financial, human labour and knowhow, and physical assets), . . .
(市场营销 TB)
(Marketing TB)
观众和这些文体之间的目的差异也体现在证据标记使用方式的对比上。对于研究论文的读者而言,论点与其提出者密不可分,作者需要大量明确的互文性来表明谁是该论点的最初提出者,以及该论点与当前论证的关联。不仅如此,引用对于获得新论点的认可也至关重要,它能为论证提供令人信服的支持,并展现论断的新颖性。这意味着证据标记在文章中十分常见:
Differences in audience and purpose between these genres are also apparent in the contrasting use of evidential markers. For readers of research papers, claims are inseparable from their originators and a great deal of explicit intertextuality is required from authors to show who first made the claim and how it relates to the current argument. More than this, however, citations are also crucial to gaining approval of new claims by providing persuasive support for arguments and demonstrating the novelty of assertions. This means that evidentials are common in articles:
(23)关于分裂动力学尚无共识:一些作者认为姐妹染色体在分裂前会“跳跃”到分离的位置(Begg 和 Donachie,1991;Hiraga 等人, 1990;Sargent,1974),而最近的测量表明染色体的运动是连续的(van Helvoort 和 Woldringh,1994)。
(23) There is no consensus opinion on the kinetics of partitioning: some authors have suggested that sister chromosomes ‘jump’ to their separated positions in preparation for division (Begg and Donachie, 1991; Hiraga et al., 1990; Sargent, 1974), whereas more recent measurements suggest that movement of the chromosomes is continuous (van Helvoort and Woldringh, 1994).
(生物学文章)
(Biology article)
……在已进行的学术听力研究中,几乎没有在英语为第二语言的背景下进行过研究(Arden-Close,1993;Flowerdew 和 Miller,1992;Jackson 和 Bilton,1994)。
. . . within the research that has been done on academic listening, hardly any has been conducted in contexts where English is a second language (Arden-Close, 1993; Flowerdew and Miller, 1992; Jackson and Bilton, 1994).
(应用语言学文章)
(Applied Linguistics article)
然而,教科书作者与其说是关心如何说服持怀疑态度的专业读者接受新观点,不如说是更关心如何阐述观点。该学科的原则。因此,重点在于既定事实,而非最初提出这些事实的人或个人对这些事实的立场。结果,元话语被省略,未指明的来源取代了引用:
The textbook writer, however, is less concerned with convincing a sceptical professional audience of a new claim than with laying out the principles of the discipline. The emphasis is therefore on the established facts rather than who originally stated them or one’s stance towards them. As a result, metadiscourse is omitted and unspecified sources replace citations:
(24)致病性奈瑟菌 的表面结构一直是微生物学研究的热点。淋球菌外膜蛋白表明……
(24) Surface structures of the pathogenic Neisseria have been the subjects of intense microbiologic investigations for some time. Gonococcal outer membrane proteins demonstrate . . .
(生物学结核病)
(Biology TB)
许多专家认为大型超市将会继续扩张。如果真是如此,现有超市可能会受到影响。
Many experts believe superstores will continue to spread. If so, existing supermarkets may suffer.
(市场营销 TB)
(Marketing TB)
显然,不同语言群体对礼貌行为的规范有所不同。
Clearly rules for polite behaviour differ from one speech community to another.
(应用语言学教材)
(Applied Linguistics TB)
因此,对于教科书读者而言,作者将文章中可能存在争议的事实本身,转化为无需引用支持的相对无争议的陈述。
For a textbook audience then, the writer transforms the facts themselves from the potentially disputable status of the articles to the relatively uncontroversial statements which require no citational backing.
最后,作者对潜在读者能否理解其交际意图的元话语评估也有助于解释过渡词出现频率的差异。在研究论文中,过渡词的使用频率要低得多,因为作者倾向于用词汇编码其推理过程,依赖读者根据自身对写作技巧和所讨论实体之间关系的了解来构建潜在的语义结构(例如,Myers,1991)。例如,具备微生物学领域知识的读者就能理解研究论文中以下句子之间的联系:
Finally, writers’ metadiscoursal assessments of the ability of a potential audience to recover their communicative intentions also help to explain the different frequencies of transitions. In the research articles there were far fewer transitions as writers tended to code their reasoning lexically, relying on readers to construct an underlying semantic structure from their knowledge of craft skills and relations between the entities discussed (e.g. Myers, 1991). Domain knowledge specific to microbiology, for example, allows the informed reader to unpack the connections between these sentences from a research article:
(25) 转化依赖性红霉素抗性表明,源自嗜温菌粪肠球菌的腺苷甲基化酶基因在嗜热糖化梭菌中表达。质粒 pCTC1 的复制似乎独立于染色体,这可以从凝胶电泳中回收质粒的可视化结果看出,并且使用回收的质粒 pCTC1 进行的再转化在嗜热糖化梭菌中得以维持。在 45 和 60 摄氏度下均观察到限制性分析表明,通过嗜热菌时几乎没有发生重排。
(25) Transformation-dependent erythromycin resistance indicates that an adenosine methylase gene originating from Enterococcus faecalis, a mesophile, is expressed in C. thermosaccharolyticum. The plasmid pCTC1 appears to be replicated independently of the chromosome, as indicated by visualization of recovered plasmid on gels, and retransformation using recovered plasmid pCTC1 is maintained in C. thermosaccharolyticumat both 45 and 60C. Restriction analysis showed little or no rearrangement occurred upon passage through the thermophile.
另一方面,教科书中讨论生物过程的段落通常会更明确地指出预期的联系,以确保缺乏领域知识的读者能够理解这些联系:
On the other hand, textbook passages discussing biological processes typically signal the intended connections more explicitly to ensure that readers who lack domain knowledge are able to recover the intended connections:
(26) 尽管真核生物和原核生物在特定DNA区域的合成速率可能存在差异,但总体而言,真核生物的DNA复制速率高于原核生物。这是因为真核生物的DNA具有多个复制子(DNA大分子中具有各自起始点和终止点的片段),而细菌染色体只有一个复制子。因此,尽管真核生物染色体中的DNA含量远高于细菌染色体,但真核生物基因组的复制速度却快得多……
(26) Despite these potential differences in the rates of DNA synthesis within a particular region of DNA, the overall rate of DNA replication is higher in eukaryotes than in prokaryotes. This is because the DNA of eukaryotes has multiple replicons (segments of a DNA macromolecule having their own origin and termini) compared to the single replicon of the bacterial chromosome. Consequently, even though there is much more DNA in a eukaryotic chromosome than in a bacterial chromosome, the eukaryotic genome can be replicated much faster . . .
由于新手缺乏使这些理解具有连贯性和生命力的形式的经验,作者试图通过明确学科的共同含义并通过表面逻辑性指出清晰的思路来构建这种经验。
Because novices lack experience of the forms which give coherence and life to those understandings, authors attempt to construct this experience by making the shared meanings of the discipline explicit and indicating clear lines of thought through surface logicality.
三、教科书中的互动元话语选择
iii. Interactional metadiscourse choices in textbooks
尽管互动元话语的差异主要指向两种文体受众的不同,但互动元话语也揭示了它们截然不同的目的。议论文写作本身就适合运用互动形式,而我比较研究中的文章总体上这类修辞手法的使用频率高出60%,其中缓和语气和自我提及尤为突出。
While differences in interactive metadiscourse point largely to variations of audience between the two genres, interactional metadiscourse indicates something of their contrasting purposes. Argumentative writing lends itself to the use of interactional forms and the articles in my comparative study contained 60 per cent more of these devices overall, with hedges and self-mentions particularly prominent.
多项研究表明,研究论文中的新论断转化为教科书中公认的事实,会对人们的确定性水平产生影响。Latour 和 Woolgar (1979)例如,迈尔斯(Myers,1992)指出,教科书中未经修正的断言比例更高,因为它们主要关注的是“将当前公认的知识整理成一个连贯的整体”,而不是寻求对新主张的共识(Myers,1992:9)。省略限定性措辞会导致更高的确定性和更少的专业尊重,这反映了作者对待信息和读者的不同态度。教科书作者无需说服专家读者接受新的解释,也无需预料到被证明错误后的后果,因为大多数主张都被视为公认的事实。以下示例表明,两种文体对陈述的处理方式有所不同,文章中的限定性措辞更为严格(28),这表明作者意识到知识的局限性以及专家反驳的可能性:
Several studies have shown how levels of certainty are affected by the transformation of statements from new claims in research articles to accredited facts in textbooks. Latour and Woolgar (1979)and Myers (1992), for instance, observe that textbooks contain a higher proportion of unmodified assertions because they largely deal with ‘arranging currently accepted knowledge into a coherent whole’ rather than seeking agreement for new claims (Myers, 1992: 9). When hedges are omitted the result is both greater certainty and less professional deference, reflecting a different attitude to information and readers. The textbook author does not have to persuade an expert audience of a new interpretation or anticipate the consequences of being proved wrong because most claims are presented as recognized facts. The following examples suggest how statements are differently treated in the two genres, with heavier qualification in the articles (28), demonstrating the writers’ awareness of both the limitations of knowledge and the possibility of expert refutation:
(27)将DNA中包含的信息转移到蛋白质合成中,形成功能性酶,这一过程分两个阶段完成——转录和翻译。
(27) Transferring the information contained in DNA to form a functional enzyme occurs through protein synthesis, a process accomplished in two stages – transcription and translation.
(生物学结核病)
(Biology TB)
因此,同伴写作会议能够促进更多探索性对话,促进认知冲突,鼓励学生在自己的学习过程中发挥更积极的作用,并使学生认识到自己的写作对他人的影响。
Thus, peer writing conferences foster more exploratory talk, promote cognitive conflict, encourage students to take a more active role in their own learning processes and enable students to recognise the impact of their own writing on others.
(应用语言学教材)
(Applied Linguistics TB)
(28)因此,这些基因很可能有助于形成一种具有广泛重要性的染色体分配机制。
(28) It therefore seems likely that these genes may contribute to a general chromosome-partitioning mechanism of wide importance.
(生物学文章)
(Biology article)
因此,《泰晤士报》似乎 通过给予建制派相对较高的关注度来加强对建制派的支持(同时表面上保持中立),而《太阳报》则通过关注个人和代词参与者来使其主要由工人阶级读者组成的群体去政治化(同时一直伪装成直言不讳的形象)。
Thus, it appears that The Times reinforces support for the Establishment (while seeming impartial) by according it a relatively high profile, whereas the Sun depoliticizes its largely working-class readership (posing as outspoken all the while) by concentrating on individuals and pronoun participants.
(应用语言学文章)
(Applied Linguistics article)
虽然教科书作者使用的缓和语比学术论文作者少,但他们并非完全忽略缓和语,而缓和语的存在表明,教科书并非仅仅是对学术真理的颂扬。作者会选择使用缓和语。他们会梳理所呈现的信息,区分哪些是理所当然的,哪些仍不确定。当作者推测未来或遥远的过去时(29),或者当概括性的结论如果直白地提出可能会受到质疑时(30),尤其如此:
While textbook authors use fewer hedges than research writers, they do not ignore them altogether, and their presence suggests that the genre is not simply a celebration of academic truths. Writers pick their way through the information they present, sorting the taken-for-granted from the still uncertain. This is particularly the case where authors speculate about the future or the distant past (29), or when generalizations may attract challenges if presented baldly (30):
(29)……最早的细胞也可能通过化能异养机制获取能量,最有可能的是简单的发酵作用。光合作用也是一种可能性,但似乎不如……的可能性大。
(29) . . . earliest cells could also have obtained energy by chemoorganotrophic mechanisms, most likely simple fermentations. Photosynthesis is also a possibility but seems less likely than . . .
(生物学)
(Biology)
在不久的将来,我们或许不可能描述人类话语的全部内容。
And it is probably impossible in the near future to describe the whole of human discourse.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
(30)随着失业率上升,新的技术发展似乎预示着充分就业的需求可能永久结束,那么削减福利支出可能被视为工业体系变革的必然和必要的伴随物。
(30) As unemployment increases, and new technological developments seem to herald a possibly permanent end to the need for full employment, then cuts in welfare expenditure might be seen as inevitable and necessary concomitants to changes in the industrial system.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
与男性相比,女性似乎使用表达更多不确定性的语言(……),这表明她们对自己所说的话缺乏信心。
Women appear to use language that expresses more uncertainty (. . .) than men, suggesting less confidence in what they say.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
在科学教科书中,限定性词语也被用来帮助读者清晰地了解科学进步,通过区分过去的错误假设和现在的确定性。以下摘录中限定性词语与确定性词语的对比,正是作者试图构建认知发展图式以及展现其学科描述自然世界能力不断提升的典型方式。这种观点是科学认识论和探究模式的核心:
In science textbooks, hedges are also used to give readers a clear picture of scientific progress by distinguishing the false assumptions of the past from the certainties of the present. The contrast of qualification and definiteness in the extract below is typical of the ways that writers seek to establish a cognitive schema of development and the increasing ability of their disciplines to describe the natural world. This view lies at the heart of the epistemologies and modes of inquiry of the sciences:
(31) 有人认为,接合菌的简单孢子囊孢子只需很短的时间即可发育,而子囊菌更复杂的子实体则需要更长时间才能发育。需要更长的生长周期,而鬼伞属(Coprinus)的子实体更大,所需的准备时间也最长。(……)我们现在知道,在最初的生长和孢子形成高峰期过后,基质的各种成分远未耗尽。实际上,鬼伞属通过抑制大多数其他真菌而占据了主导地位。鬼伞属的菌丝实际上是……
(31) It was argued that the simple sporangiospores of the zygomycetes could be developed after only a short period, while the more elaborate fruit bodies of the ascomycetes wouldrequire a longer build-up, and the even larger basidiomata of the Coprini would need the longest preparation of all. (. . .) We now know that the various components of the substrate are far from exhausted after the initial flushes of growth and sporulation. What has really happened is that Coprinus has seized control by suppressing most of the other fungi. Hyphae of Coprinus are actually . . .
(生物学)
(Biology)
然而,总体而言,教科书编写者普遍不愿提升那些可能被专家读者(即评估、推荐和在课堂上使用教材的专业人士)认为不够严谨的论断(Swales,1995)。作者们也可能意识到教科书在引导初学者融入其学科修辞实践方面所扮演的角色。对事实保持谨慎的态度是学术写作和构建恰当认知框架的核心。因此,措辞上的模糊性体现了这种双重受众的语境机遇和限制,清晰地展现了作者同时面向学生和更广泛的专业读者的意图。
Overall, however, there is a general reluctance by textbook writers to upgrade claims that might be considered tenuous by the expert readership which evaluates, recommends and uses coursebooks in its classrooms (Swales, 1995). It is also probable that authors are conscious of the role textbooks play in socializing neophytes into the rhetorical practices of their discipline. A cautious attitude to facts is central to academic writing and to acquiring an appropriate cognitive schema. Hedges thus represent the contextual opportunities and constraints of this dual audience, displaying a clear orientation to both students and a wider professional readership.
教科书和文章不仅在作者对事实的表达方式上存在差异,而且在态度、参与度和自我提及的使用上也体现出截然不同的互动姿态。例如,教科书中自我提及的相对缺失表明,其作者与读者之间的关系与研究文本中构建的关系有所不同,而教科书中更多地使用参与标记也印证了这一点。这些标记的实用价值在于直接将读者视为文本参与者,在研究论文中,这通常表现为使用包容性的“我们”以及使用祈使句来引导读者阅读文本,将读者视为与作者平等的存在,从而将他们引入讨论。而在教科书中,这种专业的参与很大程度上被一种不平等的知识关系所取代,因此,当作者明确地与读者对话时,他/她往往扮演着主要知识提供者的角色:
Not only do textbooks and articles contrast in terms of writers’ expressed approach towards facts, but the use of attitude, engagement and self-mention also reveals a markedly different interactional stance. The relative absence of self-mention in the textbooks, for example, suggests a different writer–reader relationship to that cultivated in research texts, and this is supported by the greater use of engagement markers. The pragmatic value of these devices is to directly address the reader as a text participant, and in research papers this generally takes the form of inclusive we and the use of imperatives to guide readers through the text, treating readers as equals with the writer by drawing them into the discussion. In textbooks this professional involvement is largely replaced by a relationship of unequal knowledge, so when a writer explicitly addresses the reader it is often in the role of primary knower:
(32)现在,让我们来看看商店的规模以及它们的拥有方式……
(32) Now, let’s look at the size of stores and how they are owned . . .
(市场营销 TB)
(Marketing TB)
到此为止,你可能已经意识到做好研究并不容易。因此,你也不应该感到惊讶,许多研究项目做得都很差劲。你也应该意识到,有些研究是故意误导的。
By this point you have probably realised that doing good research is not easy. As a result, it shouldn’t surprise you thatmany research projects are done poorly. You should also be aware that some research is intentionally misleading.
(市场营销 TB)
(Marketing TB)
阅读这段节选时,请特别注意每个学生扮演的角色以及学生之间互动的结构。尝试描述所产生的语言类型以及所执行的语言功能。此外,评估这种学生间互动在多大程度上为学生创造了在课堂学习和第二语言习得中使用语言的机会。
As you read this excerpt, pay particular attention to the roles that each student assumes and the structure of the student–student interaction. Try to describe the type of language that is generated and the type of language functions that are carried out. Also, assess the extent to which this type of student–student interaction creates opportunities for students to use language for classroom learning and second language acquisition .
(应用语言学教材)
(Applied Linguistics TB)
这种不平等的关系似乎也让教科书作者在表达他们对命题内容的观点时拥有更大的自由。虽然两种文体中态度标记的频率相似,且主要由重要性评价构成,但教科书作者在文本中插入的明确评价性评论要多得多:
This unequal relationship also seems to allow textbook authors greater freedom in expressing their opinions towards propositional content. While the frequency of attitude markers was similar in the two genres, and mainly consisted of evaluations of importance, the textbook authors intruded far more into their texts with explicitly evaluative comments:
(33) 作者不支持任何极端立场,因为他认为这两种方法都不是总是正确的。
(33) The author cannot support either extreme position since he believes neither approach is always correct.
(市场营销 TB)
(Marketing TB)
我个人认为,仔细审视克拉申的假设,就会发现它并不符合这三个语言学问题。
My own view is that Krashen’s hypotheses do not, on closer inspection, conform to the three linguistic questions.
(应用语言学教材)
(Applied Linguistics TB)
因此,我认为,本体论上的需求不能被任意的独裁行为所压制,这种行为从根本上摧残了精神的生命。
Thus I believe for my part that the ontological need cannot be silenced by an arbitrary dictatorial act which mutilates the life of the spirit at its roots.
(哲学TB)
(Philosophy TB)
这里明显暗示作者是该领域的专家,完全掌握了相关知识,并且正在向知识较少、也不需要过多尊重的读者进行讲解。
There is a clear implication here that the writer is an expert in full command of the topic and informing an audience which is both less knowledgeable and requiring less deference.
总之,两种文体中元话语的使用表明其目的和受众存在明显差异。教科书的特点是论述风格精细,条理清晰地组织材料并阐明其中的联系,以及强调互动性的立场。在信息和读者层面,专家扮演着重要角色。当然,这种用法背后有着清晰的教学模式。专家与新手被区分开来,学习过程被视为知识的单向传递。另一方面,研究作者通常将读者视为专家,并运用元话语来建立共识,强调团结。因此,教科书中的元话语模式旨在阐明和提供信息,而论文中的元话语模式则用于排除局外人并协商达成共识。
In sum, metadiscourse uses in the two genres indicate clear differences of purpose and audience. The textbooks are characterized by an elaborate discursive style that clearly orders material and elucidates connections, and an interactional stance that emphasizes an expert role towards both information and readers. Underlying this use, of course, is a clear pedagogic model. The expert is distinguished from the novice and the process of learning seen as a one-way transfer of knowledge. Research writers, on the other hand, typically address their readers as experts and use metadiscourse to draw on shared understandings and emphasize solidarity. So while the patterns of metadiscourse in the textbooks seek to clarify and inform, those of articles serve to exclude outsiders and negotiate agreement.
5.6 总结与结论
5.6 Summary and conclusions
元话语分析框架用于分析口语和书面文本中的互动,它提供了一种探索作者如何构建文本和读者,以及如何回应其假想受众的方法。对科普读物、本科教材和研究论文的分析有助于揭示元话语如何构建和反映不同的修辞语境,并促进对话关系——而对话关系正是所有交流的核心。我们已经看到,在学术研究论文、科普文章和本科教材中,作者的元话语选择会受到语境中诸多互动要素的影响。这些要素包括对读者可能具备的学科知识、对主题的兴趣、阅读需求和目的、对文体惯例的理解和既有经验,以及对互动参与和作者介入的预期等方面的评估。
Metadiscourse is a framework for analysing interactions in spoken and written texts, providing a means to explore the ways that writers construct both texts and readers and how they respond to their imagined audiences. Analysis of popularizations, undergraduate textbooks and research articles helps to reveal how metadiscourse construes and reflects different rhetorical contexts and facilitates the dialogic relationships which are at the heart of all communication. We have seen that in academic research papers, popular science articles and undergraduate textbooks, writers make metadiscourse choices which are sensitive to a number of interactional elements of the context. Not least among these are evaluations of readers’ likely subject knowledge, their topic interests, their needs and purposes for reading, their understandings and prior experiences of the conventions of the genre, and their expectations for interactional engagement and authorial intervention.
对于学术写作者而言,元话语有助于形成一种平衡自信与谨慎的写作风格,促进同行间的尊重,并力求将论点置于学科的关注点和利益之中。在科普作品中,元话语帮助作者将研究成果呈现为与主题相关且具有新闻价值的事实,以吸引那些可能缺乏专业知识或对学科实践不感兴趣的非专业读者。在这些作品中,作者很少使用元话语来指代自身或文献,而是倾向于将内容置于读者所处的想象中的“真实世界”之中。对于教科书而言,元话语则不然。对于作者而言,元话语提供了一种展现权威作者立场、与读者互动并尽可能清晰地陈述事实的方法。这些不同的模式不仅有助于作者实现其修辞目标,还有助于界定其写作的体裁和语境。
For the research writer, metadiscourse contributes to a writer’s voice which balances confidence and circumspection, facilitates collegial respect, and seeks to locate propositions in the concerns and interests of the discipline. In popularizations, it helps writers present findings as relevant, newsworthy facts for a lay audience with potentially little detailed subject knowledge or interest in disciplinary practices. Here authors rarely use metadiscourse to refer to themselves or to the literature, preferring to situate material in an imagined ‘real world’ inhabited by their readers. For the textbook writer, metadiscourse provides a means of presenting an authoritative authorial stance and of engaging with readers while setting out information as facts as explicitly as possible. These different patterns not only help writers achieve their rhetorical goals, but help define the genres and contexts in which they write.
在上一章中,我试图阐明话语始终是情境化的、有目的的行为,并高度适应其产生和理解的修辞语境。这种与语境的关系,语言学家称之为指示性,表明语言的意义不仅来源于字面意义,也来源于其语境环境。然而,尽管第五章侧重于社会活动的差异,考察了作者的不同写作目的以及作者与读者之间的关系,但文体只是语境差异的一种表现形式。全球化增加了跨文化和跨语言的交流,并引发了这样一个问题:在非英语写作文化中成长起来的作者是否会习得影响其英语写作的修辞习惯?因此,研究人员开始探索各种语言中的元话语,以及这些语言的使用者如何在英语中运用元话语。考虑到该领域对学生和专业学者而言都已国际化,许多此类研究聚焦于学术文本也就不足为奇了。因此,在本章中,我将重点转向文化,考察其他语言中元话语的运用,以及这些语言的使用者如何在英语写作中运用元话语。
In the last chapter I sought to show how discourse is always situated, purposive behaviour, highly adapted for the rhetorical contexts in which it is created and understood. This relationship to context, what linguists call indexicality, indicates that language always takes its meaning from its contextual surroundings as much as from its literal sense. But while Chapter 5 focused on variations in social activity, looking at the different purposes of writers and at writer–reader relations, genre is only one way in which contexts vary. Globalization has increased intercultural and interlingual contacts and raised questions concerning whether writers socialized into a non-English writing culture learn rhetorical habits which affect their writing in English. Researchers have therefore started to explore metadiscourse in various languages and how speakers of those languages use it in English. The fact that many of these studies have focused on academic texts is unsurprising given the internationalization of this field for both students and professional scholars. In this chapter then, I turn to focus on culture, looking at the use of metadiscourse in other languages and by speakers of those languages writing in English.
6.1 文化和语言
6.1 Culture and language
二十年前,雷蒙德·威廉姆斯(1983:87)将文化描述为英语中最复杂的词汇之一,时至今日,它仍然没有一个被广泛接受的定义。不仅如此。该术语难以界定,也存在争议,一些作家批评它过于还原论、决定论和简单化,而另一些作家(例如 Abu-Lughod 1991;Fox 和 King 2002)则呼吁完全放弃它。
Two decades ago Raymond Williams (1983: 87) described culture as one of the most complex words in the English language, and there is still no single broadly agreed definition of it today. But not only is the term difficult to pin down, it is also controversial, with some writers criticizing it as altogether too reductionist, deterministic and simplistic, and others (e.g. Abu-Lughod 1991; Fox and King 2002) calling for its abandonment altogether.
在最近的一篇论文中,阿特金森(2004)区分了文化的三种主要视角,他定义如下:
In a recent paper, Atkinson (2004) distinguishes three main perspectives on culture which he defines as follows:
• 既有的文化观——一种流行的、符合常识的观点,认为世界被划分为各种不同的社会,每个社会都有自己的文化(例如 Gupta 和 Ferguson 1997:1)。这种观点混淆了民族国家和族群等大型政治群体,并过分强调观点和活动的共同性,而忽略了移民、社会阶层和文化传播造成的碎片化影响。
• Received views of culture – the popular, common-sense idea which sees the world as divided into a diversity of separate societies, each with its own culture (e.g. Gupta and Ferguson 1997: 1). Such views conflate large political groupings such as nation states and ethnic communities and privilege the sharedness of perspective and activities, ignoring the fragmenting influences of immigration, social class and cultural diffusion.
后 现代文化观强调变革、断裂、不连续性、不平等、运动、混合性和差异性(例如,阿帕杜莱,1996;利奥塔,1984)。换言之,它们直接探讨了过去半个世纪以来,国际人口和思想流动所带来的意想不到的、有趣的、混乱的融合、结合和文化协同效应。
• Postmodern views of culture – emphasize change, disruption, discontinuity, inequality, movement, hybridity and difference (e.g. Appadurai 1996; Lyotard 1984). In other words, they directly address the unforeseen interesting and chaotic mixing, combining and cultural synergies that international movements of people and ideas have brought about in the last half century.
• 文化研究对文化的看法——从意识形态的角度看待当代文化,认为文化信仰和实践主要是在接触各种形式和各种力量的大众流行文化的影响下形成的。
• Cultural studies views of culture – approaches contemporary culture from an ideological perspective, claiming that cultural beliefs and practices are developed predominantly under the influence of exposure to mass, popular culture in all its forms and all its power.
尽管没有一种文化观点能获得普遍认同,但在语言研究领域,最具影响力的观点或许是将文化视为一个历史传承且系统化的意义网络,它使我们能够理解、发展和交流我们对世界的知识和信念(Lantolf,1999)。也就是说,文化因素有助于塑造我们的背景认知或图式知识,并可能对我们的写作内容、写作方式以及我们对不同交际语境的反应产生显著影响。
Although no view of culture receives universal assent, a version which perhaps commands the most influence in language studies regards it as a historically transmitted and systematic network of meanings which allow us to understand, develop and communicate our knowledge and beliefs about the world (Lantolf, 1999). That is, cultural factors help shape our background understandings, or schema knowledge, and are likely to have a considerable impact on what we write and how we organize what we write, and our responses to different communicative contexts.
尽管对于文化的规模(例如,我们是在课堂上还是在民族国家中看到它们,如Holliday,1999)以及文化的所在(例如,它们存在于头脑中还是现实世界中,如Geertz,1973;Strauss和Quinn,1997)存在争议,但文化被认为与语言密不可分(Kramsch,1993)。文化因素有可能影响感知、语言、学习和交流,尤其是元话语的使用。这部分是因为我们的文化价值观反映在语言中并通过语言传递,部分是因为文化为我们提供了某些理所当然的方式来组织我们的感知和期望,以及与他人进行书面交流。社群构建并共享文化模型,这些模型在日常生活的不断协商中形成和转变。这些模型与我们因各自独特的经历而发展出的个人模型相互作用,并限制我们关注和感知到的显著事物(Shore,1996)。
While there are disagreements about the scale of such cultures, whether we see them in classrooms or in nation states (e.g. Holliday, 1999), and their location, whether they exist in the mind or the world (e.g. Geertz, 1973; Strauss and Quinn 1997), culture is seen as inextricably bound up with language (Kramsch, 1993). Cultural factors have the potential to influence perception, language, learning and communication, particularly the use of metadiscourse. This is partly because our cultural values are reflected in and carried through language, and partly because cultures make available to us certain taken-for-granted ways of organizing our perceptions and expectations and engaging others in writing. Communities construct and share cultural models, which are formed and transformed through the endless negotiations of everyday life. These models interact with the personal models we individually develop as a result of our unique experiences and act to constrain what we attend to and perceive as salient (Shore, 1996).
这样的定义显然接近于对文化的一种或多或少“既定”观点,而语言研究直到最近也倾向于采纳这种观点。这或许过分强调了一种共享的、静态的文化图景,而忽略了文化的流动性和动态性。事实上,我应该强调,尽管语言和文化因素可能区分母语和第二语言写作者,但我们不应忽视个体和群体经验的交叉影响。来自同一国家的人不能被简单地归为一类,文化规范也不能被视为决定性的因素。写作者拥有超越其出生语言和文化的个体身份,我们应该避免根据粗浅的文化二元论来对个体进行刻板印象的倾向。在这篇简短的概述中,我并不打算探讨文化与个体之间的互动方式,我只是想指出,文化并非决定性的:人们可能会抵制或忽视文化模式。
Such a definition obviously comes close to inscribing a more or less ‘received’ view of culture, and studies of language research have tended, until very recently, to adopt such a view. This does, perhaps, overemphasize a shared and static picture at the expense of what is fluid and dynamic about culture. In fact, I should stress that although linguistic and cultural factors may distinguish first and second language writers, we should not ignore the cross-cutting influences of individual and group experience. Individuals from the same country cannot be lumped together as an undifferentiated group nor cultural norms be regarded as decisive. Writers have individual identities beyond the language and culture they were born into and the tendency to stereotype individuals according to crude cultural dichotomies should be avoided. I do not intend to address the ways culture and the individual interact in this brief overview, but I simply point out that culture is not deterministic: people may resist or ignore cultural patterns.
文化对语言的影响中,研究最为深入的或许是人们对书面文本逻辑结构的期望差异,以及这些差异对第二语言读写能力发展的影响。在不同的文化中,人们对写作中逻辑性、吸引力、相关性或条理清晰的理解,以及对证据、简洁性和连贯性的评判标准,都存在差异。这正是……的研究领域。 对比修辞学(CR)积极运用文化概念来解释书面文本和写作实践中的差异。CR旨在构建一个研究基础,以证实“不同语言在修辞偏好上存在差异”(Kaplan,2000:84),而元话语是这一研究领域中最具研究价值的方面之一。
Perhaps the most-examined influence of culture in language is the differing expectations that people have about the logical organization of written texts and the effects these may have on L2 literacy development. What is seen as logical, engaging, relevant or well-organized in writing, and what counts as evidence, conciseness and coherence, are all said to differ across cultures. This is the field of Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), which actively uses the notion of culture to explain differences in written texts and writing practices. CR seeks to build a research base to identify the fact that there are ‘differences between languages in rhetorical preferences’ (Kaplan, 2000: 84), and metadiscourse is one of the most researched aspects of this enterprise.
尽管尚无定论,但研究表明,第二语言(L2)和第一语言(L1)写作者的思维模式在组织思想的方式上存在差异,而这些文化先入之见会影响沟通(例如,Connor,2002;Grabe和Kaplan,1996;Hinkel,2002)。过去十年中,一系列比较不同国家研究论文特征的研究也支持了这些结论(例如,Cmejrková,1996;Duszak,1997;Moreno,1997)。其他跨文化研究过的文体包括商业请求信(Kong,1998)、销售信(Zhu,1997)、拨款申请书(Connor 和 Mauranen,1999)、申请信(Upton 和 Connor,2001)、学生论文(El-Sayed,1992;Kubota,1998)、法庭文件(Fredericson,1996)和会议摘要(Yakhontova,2002)。
Although it is far from conclusive, research suggests that the schemata of L2 and L1 writers differ in their preferred ways of organizing ideas, and that these cultural preconceptions can influence communication (e.g. Connor, 2002; Grabe and Kaplan, 1996; Hinkel, 2002). These conclusions have been supported by a range of studies over the past decade comparing the features of research articles in var ious countries (e.g. Cmejrková, 1996; Duszak, 1997; Moreno, 1997). Other genres that have been studied across cultures include business request letters (Kong, 1998), sales letters (Zhu, 1997), grant proposals (Connor and Mauranen, 1999), application letters (Upton and Connor, 2001), student essays (El-Sayed, 1992; Kubota, 1998), court documents (Fredericson, 1996) and conference abstracts (Yakhontova, 2002).
然而,在解释此类话语和文本形式及实践时,对比修辞学在很大程度上沿用了既定的文化观(Connor,2002),直到最近才开始质疑文化与民族实体之间的关联,并将个体简化为文化类型。其结果往往是强调文化内部可预测的共识以及文化之间的差异(例如,Atkinson,2004;Zamel,1997)。为此,Connor(2004)近期提出用“跨文化修辞学”一词取代“对比修辞学”,以指代当前动态的跨文化研究模式。这些模式不仅关注文本,也关注语境,并力求揭示“小型”文化(例如课堂文化、青年文化、企业文化、学科文化等)在任何跨文化情境中与民族文化互动的方式。
In accounting for such discoursal and textual forms and practices, however, CR has largely assumed a received view of culture (Connor, 2002), until recently unproblematically identifying cultures with national entities and reducing individuals to cultural types. The result of this has often been to emphasize predictable consensuality within cultures and differences across them (e.g. Atkinson, 2004; Zamel, 1997). In response, Connor (2004) has recently suggested the term intercultural rhetoric instead of contrastive rhetoric to refer to the current dynamic models of cross-cultural research which focuses on contexts as well as texts, and which seeks to acknowledge the ways in which ‘small’ cultures (e.g. classroom cultures, youth cultures, company cultures, disciplinary cultures, etc.) interact with the national cultures in any intercultural situation.
批评者们认为,我们不能简单地从文本表面解读文化偏好:所有修辞模式对所有作者都适用,因此我们无法预测不同语言背景的学生会如何写作。例如,斯帕克(Spack,1997)指出,用文化来解释写作差异会导致一种规范化的、本质主义的立场,进而造成混淆。学生们往往根据他们的母语背景被分到一组。这是一个值得注意的警示,但同样重要的是,我们不应忽视那些可能有助于我们理解个体用第二语言写作方式的研究。
Essentially, the critics argue that we cannot simply read off cultural preferences from the surface of texts: all rhetorical patterns are available to all writers and do not allow us to predict how students from different language backgrounds will write. Spack (1997), for instance, argues that focusing on culture to explain writing differences prompts a normative, essentializing stance which leads to lumping students together on the basis of their first language background. This is a useful caution, but it is equally important that we should not ignore research which might help us understand the ways individuals write in a second language.
基本上,第二语言(L2)作者是在自己熟悉的文化背景下写作,而第一语言(L1)读者则是在另一种语境中阅读。因此,理解上的困难可能与作者期望读者投入多少精力有关。Hinds(1987:143)指出,在英语等语言中,“有效沟通的主要责任人是作者”,但在日语中,或许也包括文言文和韩语(Eggington,1987),责任人则是读者。作者通过不事无巨细地解释来“赞美”读者,而读者则被认为会细细品味其中的暗示和细微差别。同样,Clyne(1987)认为,虽然英语文化鼓励作者写出清晰、条理分明的句子,但德语文本则将挖掘意义的责任放在读者身上。换句话说,连贯性取决于读者的理解。
Basically the L2 writer is writing from his or her own familiar culture and the L1 reader is reading from another context, and so a possible explanation for any difficulties of comprehension may be related to the amount of effort the writer expects the reader to invest in the text. Hinds (1987: 143) suggests that in languages such as English the ‘person primarily responsible for effective communication is the writer’, but in Japanese, and perhaps classical Chinese and Korean too (Eggington, 1987), it is the reader. Writers compliment their readers by not spelling everything out, while readers are said to savour hints and nuances. Similarly, Clyne (1987) argues that while English language cultures urge writers to produce clear, well-organized statements, German texts put the onus on the reader to dig out meaning. Coherence, in other words, is in the eye of the beholder.
元话语很好地展现了英语写作高手如何运用这种以读者为中心的写作手法来构建文本。例如,作者的任务是在观点转换时提供过渡语句,阐明观点之间的联系和理解方式,并定期引导读者进入文本。这些元话语功能在不同语言中的频繁使用已开始引起研究者的关注。
Metadiscourse is a good example of how skilled writers craft their texts with this kind of orientation to the reader in English. It is, for example, the writer’s task to provide transition statements when moving from one idea to the next, to indicate how ideas are to be linked and understood, and to regularly bring the reader into the text. The frequency and use of these metadiscourse functions across languages have begun to attract the attention of researchers.
6.2 跨语言元话语
6.2 Metadiscourse across languages
越来越多的研究致力于识别特定语言的修辞特征,并经常将这些特征与英语文本中的修辞特征进行比较。例如,日语中的名词化(Maynard,1996)、汉语中的间接性(Zhang,1990)、芬兰语中的隐含性(Tirkkonan-Condit,1996)、芬兰语中的主题(Mauranen,1993a)以及泰语中的反思(Bickner和Peyasantiwong,1988)等都是此类研究的典型例子。一些研究直接探讨了不同语言的修辞特征及其运用方式。运用元话语的写作文化表明,与其他语言相比,英美学术英语往往具有以下特点:
A growing body of research has sought to identify the rhetorical features of particular languages, often comparing these features to those in English texts. A small sample includes nominalization in Japanese (Maynard, 1996), indirectness in Chinese (Zhang, 1990), implicitness in Finnish (Tirkkonan-Condit, 1996), theme in Finnish (Mauranen, 1993a), and reflection in Thai (Bickner and Peyasantiwong, 1988). Studies which have directly addressed the ways different writing cultures use metadiscourse offer the view that, compared with other languages, Anglo-American academic English tends to:
• 更明确地说明其结构和目的;
• be more explicit about its structure and purposes;
• 使用更多、更新的引用;
• employ more, and more recent, citations;
• 少用反问句;
• use fewer rhetorical questions;
• 对离题或离题的言论通常容忍度较低;
• be generally less tolerant of asides or digressions;
• 在提出主张时要更加谨慎小心;
• be more tentative and cautious in making claims;
• 对小节及其标题有更严格的规范;
• have stricter conventions for sub-sections and their titles;
• 多用句子连接词(例如“因此”和“然而”);
• use more sentence connectors (such as therefore and however);
• 将清晰度和理解力的责任放在作者身上,而不是读者身上。
• place the responsibility for clarity and understanding on the writer rather than the reader.
i. 中文和英文文章中的证据
i. Evidentials in Chinese and English articles
此类比较研究往往侧重于一两个特定的元话语特征,布洛赫和迟(1995)对中西方学者在学术写作中引用前人文献方式的研究便是一个很好的例子。他们分析了120篇中英文文章,重点关注“证据”这一元话语范畴以及作者使用引文的方式。对于西方作者而言,证据在说服的社会语境中至关重要,因为它们既能为论点提供依据,又能展现作者观点的新颖性(Hyland,1999c)。换言之,引文有助于学术文本展现“同一性”(即与先前研究的联系),以及“差异性”(即强调原创性,与前人研究的差异)(Mulkay,1991)。另一方面,有人认为中国学术写作有时反映出一种不加批判、过度依赖原始文本的态度,这种态度源于儒家所推崇的和谐与“知识传授”价值观。这种做法被认为是中国古典修辞的典型特征,它重视传承而非创造。
Comparative studies of this kind have tended to focus on one or two specific metadiscourse features, and a good example is Bloch and Chi’s (1995) study of the ways Chinese and Western scholars refer to prior texts in their academic writing. Examining 120 articles in English and Chinese, the authors focused on the metadiscourse category of evidentials and the ways writers use citations. For Western writers evidentials are central to the social context of persuasion as they both provide justification for arguments and demonstrate the novelty of the writer’s position (Hyland, 1999c). In other words, citations help an academic text to demonstrate ‘sameness’, or connections to prior research, and ‘difference’ by emphasizing originality and divergence to what has gone before (Mulkay, 1991). Chinese academic writing, on the other hand, is sometimes said to reflect an uncritical and over-reliant dependence on source texts based on the Confucian values of harmony and ‘knowledge telling’. This practice is said to be typical of classical Chinese rhetoric which values transmission rather than creativity.
然而,布洛赫和奇发现,尽管英美作家使用的论据数量远超中美作家,但他们在修辞运用上却鲜有差异。作者指出,在英语的自然科学和社会科学领域以及汉语的自然科学领域,用于概述背景、支撑论点和批判其他研究的引文分布相当一致。只有在汉语社会科学文本中,支撑性引文的数量更多,而背景性引文的数量更少。中英文社会科学作家都使用更多引文来支撑其论点,这表明他们在处理互文性问题时,采取了一种更注重修辞而非仅仅罗列背景的策略。所有文本中批判性引文的平均数量都相对较低,尽管英语社会科学文本和汉语自然科学文本中的批判性引文数量较高。
Bloch and Chi, however, found that while the Anglo-American writers used overwhelmingly more evidentials, there was little difference in the ways they used them rhetorically. The authors describe a fairly consistent distribution of citations used to sketch background, support claims, and criticize other studies across the physical and social science fields in English and the physical sciences in Chinese. Only in the Chinese social science texts were there a greater number of support citations and a lower number of background ones. The fact that the social science writers in both Chinese and English used more citations to build support for their arguments suggests a more rhetorical approach to intertextuality than simply laying out background. The average number of critical citations was relatively low across all the texts, although these were greater in the social sciences in the English texts and the physical sciences in the Chinese texts.
布洛赫和迟的研究结果表明,很难对修辞学中的文化差异做出强有力的概括。重要的是,他们的研究驳斥了中国修辞缺乏批判性的观点,表明修辞学本身就具有多样性,并且随着社会变迁而不断演变。然而,他们也发现,英语作者引用的文献数量明显多于中文作者,两个语料库中新旧文献的比例几乎呈反比。作者指出,虽然这可能支持中国作者更倾向于遵循先例和古典著作的观点,但也可能仅仅反映了他们难以接触到近期的文献。因此,这项研究提醒我们,在元话语领域,不应使用刻板印象来推断文化价值观对写作实践的影响。
Bloch and Chi’s results show it is difficult to make strong generalizations about cultural differences in rhetoric. Importantly, they refute the view that Chinese rhetoric lacks a critical edge, showing that there is diversity in rhetoric which has evolved in response to social change. They did, however, find that English language writers used significantly more recent citations than their Chinese counterparts, with almost inverse proportions of newer and older citations between the two text corpora. The authors note that while this may support the view that Chinese writers are more tied to precedent and the classical writings of the past, it may also simply reflect their lack of access to recent texts. This work therefore cautions us against using stereotypes to draw conclusions about the influence of cultural values on writing practices in this area of metadiscourse.
二、西班牙语和英语社论
ii. Spanish and English editorials
在学术体裁之外,米尔恩 (2003) 探讨了元话语在西班牙《国家报》和英国《泰晤士报》社论中的作用,以比较专业作家如何在说服性文本中引导读者并与之互动。
Outside of academic genres, Milne (2003) explored the role of metadiscourse in the editorials of the Spanish El País and the British The Times to compare how professional writers guided and engaged with their readers in persuasive texts.
她发现,虽然西班牙和英国作家总体上使用的元话语量相似,但西班牙文本中包含西班牙作家使用文本(互动)元话语的频率显著更高,尤其体现在排序技巧和代码注释方面,而《泰晤士报》的作者则更多地使用人际(互动)元话语。或许最有趣的差异在于过渡标记的使用:西班牙作家普遍倾向于使用并列标记来连接观点(例如y、además、aún más/and、moreover、furthermore),而英国作家则更多地使用转折标记(例如 but、however、in contrast)。这些差异或许可以解释为西班牙人倾向于使用更长的句子,而这些句子需要用并列标记来连接。米尔恩(2003:42)也提出了一个修辞学的解释,他推测西班牙作家可能通过“在原有观点上添加论据,但始终朝着同一方向推进”来构建论证,而英国作家则“倾向于构建对比某个观点利弊的论证,这必然意味着要使用转折标记”。
She found that while the Spanish and British writers used similar amounts of metadiscourse overall, the Spanish texts contained significantly greater frequencies of textual (interactive) metadiscourse, particularly sequencing devices and code glosses, while writers in The Times used more interpersonal (interactional) metadiscourse. Perhaps the most interesting differences were in the use of transition markers where the Spanish overwhelmingly preferred additive markers to link ideas (e.g. y, además, aún más/and, moreover, furthermore) while the British writers made far greater use of adversative markers (but, however, in contrast). These differences might be explained by the Spanish tendency to produce much longer sentences which need to be coordinated by additive markers. Milne (2003: 42) also offers a rhetorical explanation, speculating that Spanish writers may build arguments by ‘adding warrants to the original idea but always moving in the same direction’, while the English writers ‘tend to build arguments contrasting the pros and cons of an idea which necessarily implies the use of adversative markers’.
她的研究结果表明,文化和文体都会影响社论中元话语的使用。西班牙的文化偏好或许塑造了文本元话语的使用,过渡语的差异反映了不同的论证构建方式,而注释的使用则体现了引入补充信息的更大自由度。另一方面,米尔恩认为,文体驱动的惯例导致了人际元话语的相对统一性。例如,缓和语和态度标记的使用相似性反映了说服报纸读者所需的缓和语气和观点相结合。显然,这些概括还需要进一步研究,但它们揭示了不同文化修辞实践中的重要差异。
Her results suggest that both culture and genre influence metadiscourse use in editorials. Spanish cultural preferences perhaps shape the use of textual metadiscourse, with the differences in transitions pointing to different ways of constructing arguments and the use of code glosses reflecting greater freedom to introduce complementary information. On the other hand, Milne argues that genre-driven conventions are responsible for the relative uniformity of interpersonal metadiscourse. Similarities in the use of hedges and attitude markers, for instance, reflect the combination of mitigation and opinion needed to persuade newspaper readers. Clearly these generalizations need further investigation, but they suggest important differences in cultural rhetorical practices.
三、西班牙语和英语文章
iii. Spanish and English articles
莫雷诺对商业和经济学研究论文文本特征的研究是跨文化元话语研究的另一个很好的例子。她比较了36篇英文论文和36篇西班牙文论文。她的研究考察了因果元话语信号,例如“结果是”、“因此”和“这导致了以下结果”(Moreno,1997),以及前提-结论关系的回顾性指标,例如“因此”、“所以”和“这些”等短语。结果似乎表明(Moreno,2004)。所有这些交互式标记在两种语言中都是可选的,因此代表了有趣的差异,使我们能够比较西班牙语和英语作者对明确句间关系的必要性的看法。
Another good example of cross-cultural metadiscourse research is Moreno’s work on textual features in business and economics research articles, comparing 36 papers in English with 36 in Spanish. Her work has examined cause–effect metadiscourse signals such as the result is, as a consequence, and this leads to the following result (Moreno, 1997), and retrospective indicators of premise–conclusion relationships such as thus, therefore and phrases such as these results would appear to indicate (Moreno, 2004). All these interactive markers are optional in both languages and so represent interesting differences, allowing us to compare Spanish and English writers’ assessments of the need to spell out inter-sentential relations.
在因果关系研究中,莫雷诺发现两组研究者在表达因果关系方面存在相似之处,相似频率和表达策略也相近。一个有趣的相似之处在于,两组研究者都选择以独立句子的形式(1)来强调因果关系,而不是将元话语机制嵌入句子中(2)(示例及翻译):
In the cause–effect research, Moreno found more similarities than differences as both groups made these relations explicit with similar frequencies and with similar strategies of expression. An interesting similarity was that both groups chose to highlight the causal relation to a similar extent by signalling the function as independent sentences (1) as opposed to embedding the metadiscourse devices in the sentence (2) (examples with translation):
(1) (1) |
这种差异会产生两种影响。结果见表1。 This difference produces two effects. The results are presented in table 1. |
作为大集团的外科医生。Las consecuencias no se han hecho esperar。 Así surgen dos grandes grupos.Las consecuencias no se han hecho esperar. |
(2) (2) |
因此,…… 结果是…… As a consequence, . . . The result is . . . |
科莫康康西亚,。 。 。 El resultado es 。 。 。 Como consecuencia, . . .El resultado es . . . |
在最近的一项研究中,莫雷诺(Moreno,2004)探讨了西班牙语和英语作家在句子间使用回溯衔接机制来表示前提-结论关系时的偏好。她发现,虽然两组作家使用这些衔接机制的比例相似,但在明确表达的程度上存在差异。她将这些过渡标记的明确程度分为三个层次:
In the more recent study, Moreno (2004) explored the Spanish and English writers’ preferences for retrospective cohesive mechanisms to signal premise–conclusion relations between sentences. She found that while the two groups used these links in similar proportions, there were differences in the degree to which they were expressed explicitly. She identified three levels of explicitness in presenting these transition markers:
1. 明确标签:这些表达方式并非指代单一的名词性群体,而是通过命名先前论证中出现的内容,准确地指出该段论述应如何解读。因此,它们为后续论证的发展提供了一个参照框架,例如以下来自我的生物学研究论文语料库的例子:
1 Explicit labels : these expressions refer to no single nominal group but by naming what has come before in previously stated arguments, indicate exactly how that stretch of discourse is to be interpreted. They therefore provide a frame of reference for the subsequent development of the argument, as in these examples from my biology research article corpus:
(3) 这些结果表明,当叶子枯萎时,凝集素的表达就会停止。
(3) These results suggest that the expression of lectin stops upon withering of the leaves.
在这种情况下,菌根定殖减少通常会降低菌根成本,并可能提高植物生长速度和产量。
In these circumstances, reduced colonization often reduces mycorrhizal cost and might increase plant growth rate and yield response.
2. 模糊标签:指示元素通过使用代词形式来明确表达,例如英语中的this和all this,或西班牙语中的esto(“这”)、eso(“那”)、ello(“它”)、aquí(“那里”)和lo cual(“哪个”)。然而,其指代并不总是非常清晰。但即便读者不知道…… 标签明确指出该条目所指的语篇段落,并标志着语篇发展中一个重要的方向转变。莫雷诺列举了两种语言中的以下例子:
2 Fuzzy labels : where the deictic element is made exp licit by using a pro-form such as this and all this in English, or esto (‘this’), eso (‘that’), ello (‘it’), aquí (‘there’) and lo cual (‘which’) in Spanish. The reference, however, is not always very clear. But while the reader does not know exactly which stretch of discourse the item refers to, the label signals a shift in direction important for the development of the discourse. Moreno gives these examples from both languages:
(4)英语:这意味着……,所有这些都表明……,这是……的一个迹象。
(4) English: This means that . . ., all this suggests that . . ., this is one indication of . . .
西班牙语:Esto significa que 。 。 。 (“这意味着”),de ello parece deducirse 。 。 。 (“从中,似乎可以推断出……”),dicho esto,. 。 。 (“话虽这么说”),según esto,。 。 。 (“在此基础上……”),por todo ello。 。 。 (“为了这一切”)
Spanish: Esto significa que . . . (‘this means that’), de ello parece deducirse . . . (‘from it, it seems to be inferred . . .’), dicho esto, . . . (‘having said this’), según esto, . . . (‘on this basis . . .’), por todo ello . . . (‘for all this’)
3. 隐含标签:指称对象未被明确指出,例如英语和西班牙语中的大多数并列连词以及一些连接短语。这让读者自行决定结论应从前文的哪一部分得出:
3 Implicit labels : in which the referential item is left implicit, as in most conjuncts in English and in Spanish, and in some linking phrases. These leave the reader to decide from which stretch of the previous discourse the conclusion is to be drawn:
(5) 作为结果/como consecuencia ('作为结果'),因此/port tanto ('因此/因此')
(5) as a consequence/como consecuencia (‘as a consequence’), therefore/por tanto (‘thus/therefore’)
我们只能得出这样的结论……;其主要含义是……
We can only conclude that . . .; The main implication is that . . .
请注意观察。 。 。 (“可以清楚地看到......”),si alguna conclusión puede aparecer como oblivete es que 。 。 。(“如果有一个结论似乎很明确,那就是……”)
Se observa claramente que . . . (‘it can be clearly seen that . . .’), si alguna conclusión puede aparecer como evidente es que . . . (‘if one conclusion seems clear, it is that . . .’)
如表6.1所示,英语(59.8%)和西班牙语(51.0%)作者在前提-结论元话语中均更倾向于使用隐性标签。这表明作者认为读者具备足够的专业知识,能够从前文中提取相关论证并接受其结论。然而,在此类语体中,西班牙语作者使用模糊标签的比例(19.66%)显著高于英语作者(6.72%)。这可能意味着西班牙语作者为其他解读方式留出了更多空间,或者说为读者提供了质疑结论的机会。
As can be seen from Table 6.1, both English (59.8 per cent) and Spanish (51.0 per cent) writers show a greater preference for implicit labels in such premise–conclusion metadiscourse. This suggests that writers believe that their readers have sufficient specialist competence to recover the relevant arguments from the preceding text to accept their conclusions. There is, however, a statistically significant difference in the Spanish preference for the use of fuzzy labels (19.66 per cent) as compared to English (6.72 per cent) in this genre. This might imply that the Spanish writers are making more space for alternative interpretations or offering readers a chance to dispute the conclusions.
表 6.1显式、模糊式和隐式前提-结论标签(Moreno,2004)
Table 6.1 Explicit vs fuzzy vs implicit premise–conclusion labels (Moreno, 2004)
莫雷诺还指出,这两个语言群体在使用名词组指代话语片段作为语言行为时存在差异,它们将这些片段标记为“论点”、“观点”或“章节” ,而不是像“问题”和“议题”那样,将这些问题和议题等存在于话语之外的现实世界中。在我的体系中,这些被称为“框架标记” ,而在克里斯莫尔的体系中,则被称为“言语行为标记” 。莫雷诺观察到,这些对语言行为或文本阶段的临时性描述使得作者能够对命题进行评估。虽然两种语言都更倾向于使用与研究相关的名词(6)来达到这一目的,但英语(60.2%)比西班牙语(43.4%)更倾向于使用名词,而西班牙语(26.5%)使用视觉单位名词(7)的比例则高于英语(19.4%)。
Moreno also notes differences between the two language groups in their use of nominal groups to refer to stretches of discourse as linguistic acts, labelling them as, say, an argument, a point or a section rather than as, say, problems and issues, which exist in the world outside the discourse. These are called frame markers in my system and illocution markers in Crismore’s scheme. Moreno observes that these ad hoc characterizations of language behaviour or text stages allow the writer to offer assessments of propositions. While both languages showed a greater tendency to use research-related nouns (6) for this purpose, this preference was greater in English (60.2 per cent) than in Spanish (43.4 per cent) with the use of visual unit nouns (7) being greater in Spanish (26.5 per cent) than in English (19.4 per cent).
(6)与研究相关的名词:
(6) Research-related nouns:
t检验统计量清楚地表明 …… ,该模型的结论是……,从这项研究文献中我们可以看到……
English: The t-test statistics clearly indicate . . ., the conclusion of the model is that . . ., from this research literature we can see . . .
西班牙语:Los resultados empíricos del análisis sugieren que 。 。 。 (“分析的实证结果表明……”),quizá la conclusión más destacable de la encuesta realizada es 。 。 。 (“也许所进行的调查中最重要的结论是......”),dados estos resultados。 。 。 (“从这些结果来看……”)
Spanish: Los resultados empíricos del análisis sugieren que . . . (‘the empirical results from the analysis suggest that . . .’), quizá la conclusión más destacable de la encuesta realizada es . . . (‘perhaps the most important conclusion from the survey carried out is . . .’), dados estos resultados . . . (‘from these results . . .’)
(7)视觉单元名词:
(7) Visual unit nouns:
英语:表 1表明 。 。 ..,如图4西班牙语:En el cuadro 7 se observa que . 。 。 (“表 7显示……”),como puede apreciarse en la Figura 6。 。 。 (“如图 6所示......”)
English: Table 1 shows that . . ., as shown in Figure 4 Spanish: En el cuadro 7 se observa que . . . (‘Table 7 shows that . . .’), como puede apreciarse en la figura 6 . . . (‘as can be seen in Figure 6 . . .’)
莫雷诺观察到,很难将这些发现理解为文化差异的结果,因为这两种标签都可以被视为作者为了与他们对数据的解读保持距离而采取的策略。这种“抽象修辞”暗示着结论中不涉及任何研究者的解读。
Moreno observes that understanding these finding s as the result of cultural differences is difficult as both types of labelling can be seen as strategies for authors to distance themselves from their interpretation of the data. Such ‘abstract rhetors’ imply that no researcher interpretation is involved in the conclusion.
四、芬兰语和英语作文
iv. Finnish and English essays
或许最具影响力的元话语比较研究是克里斯莫尔、马尔卡宁和斯特芬森(1993)对美国和芬兰学生在40篇议论文中运用元话语的分析。该研究运用表2.2中概述的描述性框架,比较了两组学生的母语。这项研究通过探讨元话语的普遍性及其分类在不同语言中的潜在有效性,在对比修辞学和元话语研究领域都取得了突破性进展。他们的研究结果见表6.2。
Perhaps the most influential comparative study of metadiscourse is Crismore, Markkanen and Steffensen’s (1993) analysis of US and Finnish students’ use of metadiscourse in 40 persuasive essays. Using the descriptive framework outlined in Table 2.2, the study compared the native languages of two groups. This research broke new ground in both Contrastive Rhetoric and metadiscourse studies by addressing the possible universality of metadiscourse and the potential validity of its categories across languages. Their results are shown in Table 6.2.
表 6.2美国和芬兰学生对元话语的使用情况比较(按行密度和百分比)(Crismore 等人,1993:59)
Table 6.2 Comparison of US and Finnish students’ use of metadiscourse by line density and % (Crismore et al., 1993: 59)
Crismore等人发现,虽然两组学生都使用了所有类型的元话语,并且互动性元话语的使用量远高于互动式元话语,但芬兰学生每行文本的元话语密度高于美国学生。在元话语的各个子类别中,两组学生的使用也存在文化差异,芬兰学生使用的态度标记和缓和语明显更多。遗憾的是,由于Crismore等人将所有连接词、连接词和内指词统称为“文本标记”,因此无法比较两组学生对这些特征的使用情况。尽管这些特征在美国学生的元话语使用中所占比例明显更高,但两组学生的数值大致相同。芬兰学生更多地使用了其他类型的互动标记,Crismore称之为“解释性标记”,这些标记本质上是指代话语行为的代码注释和框架标记(例如,“总而言之,我再次声明……”)。
Crismore et al. found that while both groups used all categories of metadiscourse and employed far more interactional than interactive metadiscourse, the Finnish students had a higher density of metadiscourse per line than the Americans. There were also cultural differences in the use of metadiscourse in the sub-categories, with the Finnish writers using substantially more attitude markers and hedges. Unfortunately, because Crismore et al. lump all connectives, sequencers and endophorics together as ‘text markers’, it is not possible to compare the students’ use of these features. The figures were roughly the same for each language group, however, although these formed a substantially higher percentage of the Americans’ use of metadiscourse. The Finns employed slightly more of the other categories of interactive markers, which Crismore calls ‘interpretives’, which are essentially code glosses and frame markers referring to discourse acts (to summarize, I state again that . . .).
这些作者在元话语运用上的总体相似性或许可以解释为,学生们写作的文体相同,目的也相同,这可能受到了西方教育体系和教材同质化效应的影响。但差异则更难解释。考虑到芬兰人内敛疏离的文化刻板印象,芬兰学生在文本中比美国学生更多地使用语气词,使用缓和语气词的比例高出70%以上,态度标记词的比例高出50%,这令人费解。Crismore等人对此的解释是,芬兰学生在学校有更多写作表达性文章的经验,可能将题目理解为需要表达个人观点,而美国学生则认为需要为自己的立场提供证据和支持,因此更多地使用了归属词。然而,芬兰学生在高中毕业后很少接受学术英语写作方面的指导,而且他们用任何语言写作的机会都相对较少,这也是不争的事实。在大学期间,这可能意味着当被要求进行有说服力的写作时,他们更有可能采用更口语化的交流模式(Ventola,1992)。
These general similarities in the writers’ deployment of metadiscourse might be explained by the fact that the students were writing in the same genre with the same persuasive purpose, influenced perhaps by the homogenizing effect of Western educational systems and instructional materials. The differences are harder to explain. Given the cultural stereotype of Finns as reserved and distant, it is puzzling that the Finnish students intruded into their texts far more than the Americans, using over 70 per cent more hedges and 50 per cent more attitude markers. Crismore et al. account for this by suggesting that Finnish students have more experience of writing expressive essays at school and may have interpreted the prompts as requiring a personal perspective while the Americans saw the need to provide evidence and support for a position, and so made more use of attributors. It is also true, however, that Finnish students receive very little instruction in writing academic English beyond high school and have to write relatively little in any language while at university. This may mean they are more likely to fall back on more conversational patterns of communication when asked to write persuasively (Ventola, 1992).
令人惊讶的是,芬兰学生使用了更多互动信号,他们更注重向读者阐明话语结构和修辞行为。芬兰人的交流方式通常被认为晦涩难懂,他们常常含糊其辞,让读者从他们寥寥数语中揣摩其意。虽然这些数据与这种观点相悖,但这可能仅仅是样本量较小的结果,毕竟40篇限时作文的数量并不足以作为比较文化偏好的依据。另一种解释是,这可能与元话语的识别方法有关,因为Mauranen(1993a和1993b)发现,芬兰人在用英语写作时使用的互动元话语形式大约只有英语母语者的一半。正如我在第二章中提到的,Crismore等人…… Crismore等人识别特征的方法混淆了语用和句法标准,并且未能区分语用手段的文本内部指称对象和文本外部指称对象,即未能区分指称语篇内各元素之间联系的语用手段和指称现实世界中各元素之间联系的语用手段。换句话说,Crismore等人对特征的计数方式可能与Mauranen不同。
It is also surprising that the Finnish students employed more interactive signals, taking slightly more care to spell out the discourse organization and their rhetorical acts for readers. Again, Finns are often seen as enigmatic in their communication, leaving their message implicit so that others have to p ick out their intentions from the little they say. While these figures contradict this view, they might just be a function of the small sample, as 40 timed essays is not a large number on which to base comparative statements of cultural preferences. Alternatively, it may result from the method of identifying metadiscourse, as Mauranen (1993a and 1993b) found that Finns used about half the interactive metadiscourse forms of native English speakers when writing in English. As I noted in Chapter 2, Crismore et al.’s approach to identifying features confounds pragmatic and syntactic criteria and fails to distinguish between text-internal and text-external referents of devices, that is, between devices that refer to links between items in the discourse and links between items in the world. In other words, Crismore et al. may have been counting features in a different way to Mauranen.
尽管存在这些不足,但这项研究是为数不多的在单一文体中跨语言全面探讨元话语标记的研究之一。该研究得出的结论表明,明确标示文本结构和评估文本内容的需求并非英语文本独有。
Yet despite these weaknesses, this is one of the few studies which explores a comprehensive range of metadiscourse markers across languages in a single genre. The conclusion to be drawn from this research shows that the need to explicitly signal text organization and evaluate what is said is not only a feature of English texts.
五、概要
v. Summary
本节所述研究产生的信息有助于构建对不同语言和语言使用群体书面语篇差异的描述性理解。因此,尽管许多学者和教师质疑要求学生遵循英美修辞惯例的合理性和可行性(例如,Kachru,1999),但阐明这些惯例的具体内容却极具成效。这项研究表明,元话语的使用并非千篇一律。语言研究揭示了真正具有普遍性的事物少之又少,鼓励我们质疑学术写作的单一视角,并培养我们对第二语言写作课堂中不同元话语实践的敏感性。此外,正如文托拉(Ventola,1992:191)所观察到的,此类研究为非英语母语写作者提供了至关重要的信息,并“为分析、理解和纠正写作中的跨文化语言问题提供了便捷的工具”。
The information emerging from the kinds of research described in this section has helped to build a descriptive understanding of variations in the written discourses of different languages and language-using groups. So while many academics and teachers question the wisdom and feasibility of requiring students to follow Anglo-American rhetorical practices (e.g. Kachru, 1999), clarifying what these conventions might be has been extremely productive. This research demonstrates that metadiscourse use is not uniform across languages, reveals how little is actually universal, encourages us to question a monolithic view of academic writing, and develops our sensitivity to different metadiscourse practices in second language writing classrooms. In addition, as Ventola (1992: 191) has observed, such research provides vital information for non-native writers of English and ‘offers convenient tools for analysing, understanding and correcting inter-cultural linguistic problems in writing’.
6.3 元话语与英语写作
6.3 Metadiscourse and writing in English
尽管鲜有研究试图识别不同语言间的元话语差异,但针对不同文化背景作者用英语创作的文本的研究却已相当丰富。这些研究基于这样的假设:即使在同一文体中,元话语的使用也会因文化习俗而异,而这些习俗的痕迹可以在作者的英语使用中找到。以下两节将概述部分研究成果。
While there are few studies which have sought to identify metadiscourse variation across languages, far more work has been done on texts written in English by writers from different cultural backgrounds. These studies build on the assumption that metadiscourse use varies according to cultural practices, even in the same genre, and that traces of these practices can be found in writers’ use of English. The following two sections summarize some of this work.
6.4 英语中的互动元话语
6.4 Interactive metadiscourse in English
元话语研究往往只考察相对有限的特征,大多数研究侧重于互动手段,这或许是因为“文本元话语的分析,无论是识别还是分类,都比人际元话语的分析更容易”(Markkanen et al., 1993: 144)。许多研究都以特定手段的过度使用或使用不足来衡量认知发展阶段和语体相似人群与母语者在相应语体上的使用情况。
Studies of metadiscourse have tended to examine a relatively limited range of features, with the majority examining interactive devices, perhaps because ‘the analysis of textual metadiscourse, both its identification and classification, is less problematic than that of the interpersonal type’ (Markkanen et al., 1993: 144). Many of these studies have expressed results in terms of the overuse or underuse of particular devices relative to native speaker practices for similar stages of cognitive development and genre.
i. 转场和帧标记
i. Transitions and frame markers
过渡词(用于指示论点之间的关系)和框架标记(用于构建文本的局部和整体结构)已通过这种方式得到广泛研究。Scollon 和 Scollon例如,(1995)年的研究表明,日语、韩语和汉语使用者经常使用“ and”和“but ”等词语,导致话语不连贯。同样,Hinkel (2002)在其对1457名大学生英语作文中的68个特征进行的大规模研究中发现,与英语母语者相比,中国、韩国、越南和阿拉伯学生显著过度使用短语层面的过渡词,例如“ and”、“but”、“yet”等,常常导致句子过长且复杂。此外,这六个亚洲非英语母语群体也普遍过度使用句子层面的连词(例如“however”、“therefore”、“as a result ”)和用于组织语序的框架标记(例如“first”、“second”、“lastly ”)。Marandi (2002)的研究也发现,英美应用语言学家使用的框架标记明显多于伊朗同行。
Transitions, which indicate relationships between arguments, and frame markers, which help structure the local and global organization in the text, have been widely studied in this way. Scollon and Scollon (1995), for instance, report that items such as and and but used by speakers of Japanese, Korean and Chinese often result in incoherent stretches of discourse. Similarly, in her large-scale study of 68 features in the English essays of 1,457 university students, Hinkel (2002) found that Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Arabic students significantly overused phrase-level transitions such as and, but, yet, etc. compared with an English native speaker group, often to produce extremely long, complex sentences. Sentence level conjunctions (however, therefore, as a result) and frame markers used to sequence material (first, second, lastly) were also substantially overused by all six of her Asian non-native English speaking groups. Marandi (2002) similarly found that Anglo-American applied linguists used significantly more frame markers than their Iranian counterparts.
Milton 和 Tsang (1993) 也发现,与伦敦-奥斯陆-卑尔根语料库、布朗大学语料库和香港科技大学语料库(这些语料库的写作风格较为多样)中以英语为母语的写作者相比,香港大学生的大量论文中过渡词的使用明显过量。在欧洲学生中,Altenberg (1995) 发现瑞典学生在用英语写作时,一些逻辑连接词的使用不足;Ventola (1992) 发现,芬兰学生使用连接词的频率低于以英语为母语的写作者,并且过度依赖有限的几种连接词,以至于“芬兰学生使用连接词的频率似乎很低,带有明显的地域性,而且有些随意和单调”(第 209 页)。另一方面,Granger 和 Tyson (1996) 发现法语学生过度使用连接词。 Granger 和 Tyson 将他们的发现归因于法国的干扰,而 Milton 和 Tsang 则将学生对过渡的热情归因于香港学校的过度教学。
Milton and Tsang (1993) also found considerable overuse of transitions in a large corpus of essays by Hong Kong university students compared with native English speaker writing in the (generically rather varied) London-Oslo-Bergen, Brown, and HKUST corpora. Among European students, Altenberg (1995) found that Swedish writers underused some logical connectors when writing in English and Ventola (1992) discovered that Finns both used connectors less frequently than native English writers and relied excessively on a limited set of devices so that ‘the use of connectors by Finnish writers seems to be infrequent, fairly locally motivated, and somewhat haphazard and monotonous’ (p. 209). Granger and Tyson (1996), on the other hand, found an overuse of connectors by Francophone students. Granger and Tyson attribute their findings to interference from French, although Milton and Tsang ascribe students’ enthusiasm for transitions to over-teaching in Hong Kong schools.
在另一项截然不同的研究中,米尔顿(1999)利用一个大型学习者语料库,探究了他观察到的香港大学生在论文中过度使用某些固定互动表达方式,导致写作风格重复的现象。他将一个包含50万词的学生论文语料库与一个规模相近的母语(L1)论文语料库、香港学校教科书以及已发表的研究论文进行了比较。如表6.3所示,分析结果证实,二语(L2)学生使用相同元话语短语的频率远高于母语(L1)写作者,而较少使用其他替代短语。L1 示例。显然,并非所有此处出现的词语都代表“互动”选项,但它们包括过渡词(例如“另一方面”)、框架标记词(例如“首先”、“总而言之”)和代码注释(例如“这是一个例子”)。此外,表达参与和态度的短语(例如“众所周知”、“在我看来”)的使用频率也显著高于 L1 文本。
In a very different kind of study, Milton (1999) used a large learner corpus to explore his impression that his Hong Kong university students were overusing certain fixed interactive expressions in their essays, leading them to a repetitive style of writing. He compared a student essay corpus of 500,000 words with a similar sized corpus of L1 essays and with Hong Kong school textbooks and published research articles. As Table 6.3 shows, the analysis confirmed that the L2 students used the same metadiscoursal phrases far more often than L1 writers, while underusing alternative phrases from the L1 samples. Clearly not all the devices here represent ‘interactive’ options, but they include transitions (on the other hand), frame markers (first of all, all in all) and code glosses (an example of this is . . .). The extensive use of phrases of engagement and attitude (as we all know, in my opinion) are also significantly higher than those of the L1 texts.
表 6.3香港学习者语料库中的词汇短语与其他样本的比较(Milton,1999:226)
Table 6.3 Lexical phrases in a Hong Kong learner corpus compared with other samples (Milton, 1999: 226)
米尔顿认为,造成这种差异的原因是教材和应试辅导班过分强调了这些特点。通过在课堂上引入其他写作方式,他帮助学生丰富了学术论文的写作风格。
Milton attributes the differences to an overemphasis on these features in teaching materials and in examination ‘cram schools’. By including alternatives in his classes, he was able to help his students vary their writing in academic essays.
尽管这些研究对过渡词和其他文本修辞特征的比较使用提供了一些见解,但研究者们通常更关注它们在构建语义衔接中的句法作用,而非它们作为元话语的功能。然而,这种方法未能区分第三章讨论的过渡词和框架结构的内部作用和外部作用。Mauranen(1993a 和 1993b)对芬兰学术界的研究是少数几个没有混淆这两种作用的研究之一,他细致地区分了命题和句子这两种表征现实的方式。
While these studies provide some insights into the comparative use of transitions and other text rhetorical features, researchers have generally been interested in their syntactic role in establishing semantic cohesion rather than their function as metadiscourse. This approach, however, fails to distinguish between the internal and external roles of transitions and framing devices discussed in Chapter 3. Mauranen’s (1993a and 1993b) work on Finnish academics is one of the few approaches which does not blur these two roles, taking care to distinguish between propositions and sentences as two ways of representing reality.
莫拉宁分析了服务于文本组织目的的元话语元素,例如连接词(例如“和”、“因此”、“结果”)、回顾(例如“到目前为止,我们假设…… ”)、预览(例如“我们将在下文中展示……”)和言语行为标记(例如“解释是……”)。她认为,这些元素并不为话语添加任何命题信息,而是通过它们所连接的命题的意义,将文本中已经存在的关联明确化。因此,它们是“文本澄清的语言现象”,有助于读者理解文本,但并非连贯性的必要条件。莫拉宁认为这种选择性至关重要:这意味着交互式元话语手段是可用的,但并非必需的。当作者认为有必要明确限制读者的解读时,可以选择公开地表明话语之间的关联。因此,它们反映了作者对读者在阅读文本时处理需求的假设,从而减少了对作者意图的任何潜在不确定性。
Mauranen provides an analysis of metadiscourse elements which serve text-organizational purposes, such as connectors (and, so, as a result), reviews (so far we have assumed that . . .), previews (we show below that . . .) and illocutionary action markers (the explanation is . . .). She argues that these elements do not add any propositional information to a discourse but serve to make explicit relations that are already there in the text by virtue of the meanings of the propositions that they link. They are therefore ‘text-clarifying linguistic phenomena’ which facilitate reader processing but which are not necessary for cohesion. Mauranen sees this optionality as crucial: it means that interactive metadiscourse devices are available but not essential. Writers can choose to overtly signal interconnections between utterances when they feel it is necessary to restrict readers’ interpretations explicitly. They therefore reflect the writer’s assumptions about the reader’s processing needs in following the text, reducing any potential uncertainties about the writer’s intended meaning.
元话语的这种修辞目的有助于解释莫拉宁的研究结果,即英美作家比芬兰作家更多地使用元文本。表6.4仅选取两篇论文,以更清晰地说明这种差异。可以看出,芬兰作家文本中包含元话语的句子数量(22.6%)远少于以英语为母语的作家文本中的比例(54.2%)。美国作家在各类元文本元素中所占的比例也更高,且在序列中元文本句子所占的比例也更高(17.0% 对比 3.2%)。总的来说,她的研究表明,以英语为母语的作家在用英语写作时,比芬兰作家更注重引导和指引读者,并在文本中展现自身的存在感。这些结果再次表明,英语作家更注重读者,更重视礼貌,并且通常使用更明确的文本修辞。这与克里斯莫尔等人(Crismore et al.)的研究结果相符。 's (1993) 的结果在表 6.2 中讨论,并且与芬兰语和英语写作都遵循隐含的、读者负责的风格的印象一致(例如 Ventola 和 Mauranen,1991)。
This rhetorical purpose of metadiscourse helps explain Mauranen’s findings that Anglo-American writers used more metatext than Finnish authors. Table 6.4. focuses on just two papers to more clearly illustrate this difference. As can be seen, there were far fewer sentences containing metadiscourse in the Finnish writer’s text (22.6 per cent) than in the native English writer’s text (54.2 per cent). The American writer also had a higher proportion of metatextual elements in each category and a higher proportion of metatextual sentences in a sequence (17.0 per cent as opposed to 3.2 per cent). In general, her study showed that the native English speakers displayed more interest in guiding and orienting readers and in making their presence felt in the text than the Finnish authors when writing in English. These results once again indicate a more reader-oriented attitude, a more positive notion of politeness and a generally more explicit textual rhetoric. This reinforces Crismore et al.’s (1993) results discussed in Table 6.2 and is consistent with the impression that Finnish writing, both in English and Finnish, follows an implicit and reader-responsible style (e.g. Ventola and Mauranen, 1991).
表 6.4英国作家和芬兰作家作品中的元文本(Mauranen,1993b:11)
Table 6.4 Metatext in texts by an English and a Finnish writer (Mauranen, 1993b: 11)
莫拉宁推测,她的研究结果源于不同文化在礼貌规范和修辞表达方面的偏好差异。芬兰人和美国人之间存在差异。美国人给人的印象是比芬兰人更有受众意识,他们试图通过明确引导读者来影响读者的解读。相比之下:
Mauranen speculates that her results arise from different cultural preferences in norms of politeness and rhetorical explicitness between Finns and Americans. The Americans give an impression of having a greater sense of audience than the Finns and seek to condition readers’ interpretations by explicitly guiding them. In contrast:
芬兰诗歌中那种含蓄而富有诗意的修辞手法,或许可以被解读为一种礼貌,因为它将读者视为有智慧的存在,无需过多解释。我们都知道,说得太直白会显得居高临下。另一方面,含蓄晦涩也可能被解读为傲慢和漠不关心:作者的含蓄表达似乎在炫耀自己的智慧,让读者自行摸索,如果读者真的有能力理解的话。如果读者无法理解论证,那是他们自己的问题。
The poetic, implicit Finnish rhetoric could be construed as being polite by its treatment of readers as intelligent beings, to whom nothing much needs to be explai ned. Saying too obvious things is, as we know, patronising. On the other hand, being implicit and obscure can also be interpreted as being arrogant and unconcerned: the inexplicit writer can be seen as presenting himself as superior to the reader, displaying his or her own wisdom, and leaving the reader to struggle with following the thoughts, if indeed he/she is capable of such a task. If the reader cannot follow the argument, it is his/her problem.
(Mauranen,1993b:17)
(Mauranen, 1993b: 17)
因此,虽然芬兰语中的修辞策略在芬兰语中可能被认为是礼貌和有说服力的,但当它们被移植到英语中时,不仅可能导致无意中效率低下的修辞,还可能导致对作者的负面评价。
So while Finnish rhetorical strategies can be perceived as polite and persuasive in Finnish, when transferred into English they may result not only in unintentionally inefficient rhetoric, but negative evaluations of the writer.
Valero-Garces (1996) 对四篇西班牙语和英语经济学文本的相同特征进行了平行研究,发现了与 Mauranen 相似的结果。在她研究中,英美经济学家使用的元文本比西班牙作者更多,连接词和言语行为标记的使用也明显更多。西班牙语作者使用元文本来引导读者、连接命题材料或预览和回顾内容的情况相对较少。与 Mauranen 对芬兰作者的研究类似,Valero-Garces 发现,她的西班牙语文本中的作者存在感远低于以英语为母语的文本,作者的角色被弱化,事实的呈现也较为客观。与芬兰作者一样,西班牙作者也提高了读者的参与度,两位作者都援引 Hinds (1987) 和 Clyne (1987) 的观点,认为这些文化接近于“读者责任型”语言,强调读者在有效沟通中的作用。
In a parallel study of the same features in four Spanish and English Economics texts, Valero-Garces (1996) found similar results to Mauranen. The Anglo-American economists in her study used more metatext than the Spanish writers, with considerably more connectors and illocution markers. The Spanish-speaking writers employed relatively little metatext to orientate the reader, to link propositional material, or to preview and review content. Also like Mauranen’s study of Finnish writers, Valero-Garces found that her Spanish texts contained far less authorial presence than the native English speaker texts, with the role of the author played down and facts presented impersonally. The Spanish writers, like the Finns, make the reader’s role more demanding and both authors invoke Hinds (1987) and Clyne (1987) to suggest that these cultures approximate to ‘reader-responsible’ languages which place emphasis on the reader to manage successful communication.
6.5 英语中的互动元话语
6.5 Interactional metadiscourse in English
尽管大多数研究都集中于元话语的互动特征,但比较研究并未完全忽略互动资源。近十年来,人们对语言的评价性和互动性特征越来越感兴趣(例如,Hunston和Thompson,2000;Hyland,2000;Martin和White,2004),这种兴趣也体现在对比研究中。作者通过与读者建立联系、评价自身作品并承认不同观点,从而对自身及其作品进行可信的呈现,是成功学术写作的关键特征,并且已在英语作为第一语言和第二语言的写作中得到研究。
Although most research has focused on the interactive features of metadiscourse, comparative studies have not ignored interactional resources altogether. In the last decade there has been a growing interest in the evaluative and interactive features of language (e.g. Hunston and Thompson, 2000; Hyland, 2000; Martin and White, 2004) and this interest is also reflected in contrastive studies. The ability of writers to offer a credible representation of themselves and their work, by claiming solidarity with readers, evaluating their material and acknowledging alternative views, is a defining feature of successful academic writing and has been studied in both first and second language writing in English.
例如,Abdollahzadeh (2003) 发现,在已发表的应用语言学研究论文的讨论部分,以英语为母语的美国作者比伊朗作者更倾向于使用大量的强调词和态度标记。相比之下,Vassileva (2001) 的研究发现,保加利亚学者在用英语撰写论文时,使用的缓和语气词较少,而强调词较多,这表明他们既表现出更强的客观性,也表现出更强的投入性。在另一项针对会议摘要的研究中,Yakhontova (2002) 发现,乌克兰语/俄语使用者在用英语和乌克兰语写作时,比英语使用者更倾向于使用自指 代词和评价性表达。另一方面,英语作者在讨论文献时,只使用包容性的“我们”,并且避免对自身研究进行评价和使用负面态度表达。雅洪托娃指出,日耳曼语系的“作家导向”传统以及苏联合作意识形态的持续影响,都试图解释该语料库中广泛的结构差异,但这并不能解释这些文本中作家的影响力更大。
Abdollahzadeh (2003), for instance, found that native Anglo-American writers tend to use significantly higher instances of boosters and attitude markers in the discussion sections of published Applied Linguistics research papers than their Iranian counterparts. In contrast, Vassileva’s (2001) study found Bulgarian academics used far fewer hedges and more boosters when writing papers in English, indicating both greater detachment and more commitment. In another study, this time of conference abstracts, Yakhontova (2002) discovered that Ukrainian/Russian speakers were far more likely to use self-referential pronouns and evaluative expressions than their English counterparts when writing both in English and in Ukrainian. The English writers, on the other hand, only used inclusive we and avoided evaluations of their research and negative attitudinal devices when discussing the literature. Yakhontova points to both a Germanic ‘writer-orientation’ tradition and the continuing influence of a collaborative Soviet ideology in seeking to explain the broad structural differences in this corpus, although this does not account for the greater writer presence in these texts.
Hinkel (2002) 开展了一项规模最大、最详尽的此类比较研究,调查了来自六个语言群体的 1457 名本科生在限时英语作文中 68 种语言和修辞特征的出现频率和使用情况,并将其与英语母语者的表现进行了比较。表 6.5 总结了她研究中一些关键互动元话语特征的结果。
In one of the most extensive and detailed comparative studies of this kind, Hinkel (2002) investigated the frequencies and uses of 68 linguistic and rhetorical features in timed essays written in English by 1,457 undergraduates from six language groups and compared them with those by native English speakers. The results of some of the key interactional metadiscourse features in her study are summarized in Table 6.5.
表 6.5选择性互动元话语特征的中位数频率(基于 Hinkel,2002)(粗体= 与 L1 使用情况存在统计学上的显著差异)
Table 6.5 Median frequency rates for selective interactional metadiscourse features (based on Hinkel, 2002) (bold = statistically significant difference to L1 use)
虽然我们需要分析每种修辞手法在其语境中的每个实例,以确定其是否发挥了元话语作用。这些修辞特征通常用于实现特定的互动元话语功能。更详细地说,它们代表了以下功能的可能用途:
While we would need to analyse every instance of each device in its context to determine if it was performing a metadiscoursal role, these rhetorical features are often used to realize particular interactional metadiscourse functions. To elaborate slightly, they represent possible uses of the following functions:
• • |
自我提及 Self-mention |
第一人称代词(作者直接参与):我、我的、我的 first-person pronouns (direct involvement of writer) I, me, my, mine |
• • |
助推器 Boosters |
强调(强化真理价值)当然,证明,真的 emphatics (reinforce truth value) certainly, demonstrate, really |
• • |
增强副词(加强动词和副词)完全、总是 amplifying adverbs (strengthen verbs and adverbs) totally, always |
|
• • |
树篱 Hedges |
弱化语气(减弱语句力度)相当地、几乎地、部分地 downtoners (reduce force of statements) fairly, almost, partly |
• • |
频率副词(使陈述不确定)通常,有时 frequency adverbs (make statements indefinite) usually, sometimes |
|
• • |
缓和语(降低对真相的责任)可能、或许、可能 hedges (decrease responsibility for truth) probably, perhaps, may |
|
• • |
参与度指标 Engagement markers |
第二人称代词(直接称呼读者):你、你的、你自己。反问句(直接与读者对话):必要性情态动词(引导读者采取行动或思考):必须、应该。预设标记(假定共享信息):当然、显然 second-person pronouns (address reader markers directly) you, your, yourself. rhetorical questions (speak directly to reader) necessity modals (direct reader to action or thought) must, should presupposition markers (assume sharedness) of course, obviously |
表格清晰地显示了不同语言群体在用英语就同一主题写作时,在元话语特征的使用上存在显著差异。自我提及、强化词和互动标记在非英语母语者的文章中普遍更为常见,而缓和语的使用频率则较低。以下段落将对此进行详细阐述。
The table shows clear differences in the use of a number of metadiscourse features by different language groups writing on the same topics in English. Self-mention, boosters and engagement markers were generally far more frequent in the non-native English speakers’ essays, while hedges were less frequent. The following paragraphs elaborate these comments.
自我提及 :人们通常认为亚洲学生倾向于使用集体主义的方式来表达身份或观点,避免自我提及以掩盖作者的直接参与和观点(Ohta,1991;Scollon,1994)。本研究中几乎所有非英语母语作者都显著使用了更多的第一人称代词,这可能与学生被要求回答的题目有关。Hinkel指出,所有非英语母语学生的文章都……除了阿拉伯语使用者之外,其他使用者的文章中都包含大量个人叙述,作者自然而然地试图讲述自己的经历。这类文章中就出现了像这样的句子,出自一位中国学生之手:
Self-mention : Asian students are often believed to favour collectivist ways of expressing identity or opinion, avoiding self-mention to disguise the direct involvement and views of the writer (Ohta, 1991; Scollon, 1994). The fact that almost all of the non-native writers in this study used significantly more first-person pronouns may have been a function of the prompts that students were asked to respond to. Hinkel notes that the essays written by all the non-native English speakers, except speakers of Arabic, included large proportions of personal narratives in which writers naturally sought to recount their own experiences. Such essays produced sentences such as this, from a Chinese student:
(8)上音乐课的时候,我可以忘记所有的烦恼。我非常喜欢拉小提琴,迫不及待地想去大学读书。可是我父亲说我必须当医生,我只想离家出走。
(8) When I was in my music class, I could forget about all my troubles. I liked playing the violin so much that I couldn’t wait to go to the university to study. But my father said that I had to be a doctor, and I wanted to run away from my house.
虽然这种过度使用自我提及可能反映了文化偏好或对英美学术惯例缺乏经验,但也同样可能是由于当前教学材料和风格指南的混乱造成的,这些材料和风格指南似乎不确定是鼓励还是禁止使用自我提及(Hyland,2002b)。
But while such comparative overuse of self-mention may reflect cultural preferences or inexperience with Anglo-American academic conventions, it is just as likely to result from the current confusion in teaching materials and style guides, which seem uncertain whether to encourage or prohibit their use (Hyland, 2002b).
强化语 :欣克尔指出,在英美以外的许多修辞传统中,夸张和过分陈述被视为恰当且有效的说服手段,能够传达作者对其观点的坚定立场。这或许可以解释为何非母语人士的文章中强化语的使用频率如此之高。这些强化语的作用在于强化可分级副词和动词的含义,例如,一位印尼作家就曾使用过类似的表达方式(引自欣克尔,2002:126):
Boosters : Hinkel observes that in many rhetorical traditions other than Anglo-American, exaggeration and overstatements are seen as appropriate and effective means of persuasion, conveying the writer’s commitment to his or her statements. This may help to explain the high frequencies of amplifiers in the non-native speakers’ essays. These function to intensify the meanings of gradable adverbs and verbs, producing utterances such as this from an Indonesian writer (from Hinkel, 2002: 126):
(9)父母总是鼓励孩子选择未来企业需求量大的专业,这样他们毕业后就能找到工作,赚更多的钱。但也有很多人非常讨厌自己的工作,过得很痛苦。
(9) Parents always encourage their children to study the major that will be needed by a lot more companies in the future, so that they could get jobs and earn a lot more money after they graduate from the university. There are a lot of people who totally hate their jobs, and they are very miserable.
同样,在第二语言写作者的文本中,加强语气词的使用频率明显更高,写作者经常使用非正式形式来加强自己的论点,并强调某个陈述的真实性:
Similarly, boosters were significantly more frequent in the second language writers’ texts, where writers often drew on informal forms to strengthen their claims and emphasize the truth of a statement:
(10) 他们不可能将所学知识应用到现实世界中。
(10) No way can they apply what they learn to the real world.
(越南语)
(Vietnamese)
他们强烈的依赖性使他们缺乏竞争力和自信心,最终轻易失败。
Their strong dependence really makes them lack competiveness and confidence, and finally defeated easily.
(中国人)
(Chinese)
相比之下,学术写作材料和教师通常不鼓励英语中出现夸张的表达方式,这似乎也影响了该语料库中的母语作者。
In contrast, academic writing materials and teachers generally discourage overstatement in English and this seems to have influenced the native speaker writers in this corpus.
缓和语 :缓和语在许多学术写作传统中很常见,它是一种表达间接性、为不同观点留出修辞空间以及避免对某个命题的确定性负责的手段。弱化语气可以降低动词和形容词的强度,从而减弱陈述的情感冲击力(11),而频率副词也经常起到缓和语气的作用,使命题显得模糊和笼统(12)。以下示例来自我的香港本科生语料库:
Hedges : Hedges are common in many academic writing traditions as a means of conveying indirectness, opening a rhetorical space for alternative views and avoiding responsibility for the certainty of a proposition. Downtoners scale down the intensity of verbs and adjectives, reducing the affective impact of statements (11), while frequency adverbs also often function as hedges by imparting vagueness and generality to propositions (12). These examples are from my Hong Kong undergraduate corpus:
(11)总体而言,新飞巴士的乘客在所有三个方面都比城巴的乘客略微满意一些。
(11) Overall, passengers of NWFB are a little bit more satisfied than those of Citybus in all three attributes.
我们的研究经验数据清楚地表明,男性和女性在外部动机因素上的平均得分都相当高,……
Empirical data of our study show clearly that both men and women had a fairly high mean score on extrinsic motivation factor, . . .
(12)学生们有时会对大量的代码、缩写和符号感到困惑。
(12) The students are sometimes puzzled by the abundance of codes, abbreviations and symbols.
女孩在语言能力和阅读测试中的得分通常也高于男孩,尤其是从 11 岁开始。
Girls also usually score higher than boys in verbal ability and reading tests, especially from age eleven onward.
语料库中,只有缓和语被广泛使用,而且除韩语使用者外,所有语言群体使用的缓和语都显著少于英美作家。欣克尔认为,日语、韩语和汉语使用者撰写的文章常常显得过度使用缓和语且语气含糊,这可能是由于他们的写作传统所致。然而,她自己的数据却表明并非如此,我将在下文中再次探讨这个问题。
Only hedges were widely employed by writers in the corpus, and all language groups except Koreans used significantly fewer than the Anglo-American writers. Hinkel believes that essays written by speakers of Japanese, Korean and Chinese often appear over-hedged and uncertain, possibly because of their writing traditions. Her own data, however, suggests otherwise, a nd I will take this issue up again below.
互动 :作者运用多种不同的手法直接与读者交流,从欣克尔的数据可以看出,第二语言写作者更倾向于在文章中使用这些手法。在本语料库中,非英语母语写作者使用第二人称代词的频率显著高于英语母语写作者,这主要是为了促使读者从作者的个人经历中学习,例如欣克尔数据中一位中国写作者的以下示例:
Engagement : A heterogeneous group of devices are used to directly address the reader, and we can see in Hinkel’s data that the second language writers were far more likely to employ these in their essays. Second-person pronouns were used significantly more by the non-native English writers in this corpus, largely to urge the reader to learn from the personal experience of the writer, as in this example from a Chinese writer in Hinkel’s data:
(13)如果你是一名本科生,你可能会在选择专业领域时遇到困难。你必须努力寻找那些……既要考虑你的兴趣,也要满足你的生活需求。你需要听取父母的意见,就像我当年一样,但你不能让父母控制你。记住,这是你的人生,你需要做自己想做的事。
(13) If you are an undergraduate student, you may have difficulty choosing a major field. You have to try to find jobs that have both your interests and can satisfy your living. You need to hear your parents’ words, like I did, but you cannot let your parents control you. Remember this is your life, and you need to do what you need to do.
在某些文化中,这些代词的作用是引起读者的参与并促进群体团结,但通常建议作者在英语学术写作中避免使用这些代词,因为它们显得不恰当、非正式且口语化。
In some cultures, these pronouns function to elicit reader involvement and promote group solidarity, but writers are generally urged to avoid them in academic writing in English as being inappropriately informal and conversational.
同样,反问句也被视为一种人为的、刻意的与读者建立联系的方式,而预设标记(预先排除反对意见并假定读者具备常识)在这些文本中也很少见。另一方面,情态动词的使用频率远高于其他语言学习群体。这些情态动词引导读者采取某种行动或思考,其使用频率可能源于一些文章主题鼓励作者提醒读者其社会和家庭义务(Hinkel,2002:110)。
Rhetorical questions are similarly seen as an artificial and contrived way of building a relationship with readers while presupposition markers, which pre-empt opposition and assume common knowledge with readers, are also rare in these texts. Necessity modals, on the other hand, were employed far more frequently by the L2 groups. These direct readers to some action or thought and their frequency could have resulted from essay topics which encouraged writers to remind readers of their social and family obligations (Hinkel, 2002: 110).
i. 关于对冲和促进剂的更多信息
i. More on hedges and boosters
在对英语专业写作文本的研究中,缓和语气词和增强语气词通常是最常用的互动元话语标记(参见第5章和第7章)。它们是作者灵活运用英语表达立场、同时兼顾自身观点和读者感受的主要手段,并且能够显著影响读者对文本指称性和情感性的评估。然而,人们普遍认为,学习者很难掌握这些标记。这不仅是因为缓和语气词和增强语气词的表达方式多种多样,还因为它们能够传达一系列不同的含义,既能表明作者对信息真实性的信心,又能促进与读者的沟通(Hyland,1998a)。
Hedges and boosters generally emerge as the most frequently employed interactional metadiscourse markers in studies of expert writer texts in English (see Chapters 5 and 7). These are a principal means by which writers can use English flexibly to adopt a stance to both their propositions and their audience and can have a considerable effect on a reader’s assessment of both referential and affective aspects of texts. They are, however, generally acknowledged to be difficult for learners to acquire. This is not only because hedging and boosting can be expressed in a variety of different ways, but also because they can convey a range of different meanings, signalling the writer’s confidence in the truth of information and contributing to a relationship with the reader (Hyland, 1998a).
几年前,莱昂斯(Lyons,1981:238)指出,不同的语言使用不同的语言手段来表达特定的情态。同样重要的是,不同语言在表达论证的确定性和自信程度上也存在差异。例如,斯科隆和斯科隆(Scollon & Scollon,1995)认为……亚洲人倾向于使用间接的修辞策略,这源于不同文化背景下情境的构建以及互动中参与者的角色,而这些又与互动礼仪密切相关。许多研究都发现了不同语言学术写作中存在的这种差异。例如,在学术语境中,德语和捷克语似乎比英语更直接(Bloor and Bloor, 1991: 9; Clyne, 1987),而芬兰语(Mauranen, 1993b; Ventola, 1992)、日语(Hinds, 1987; Harder, 1984)、马来语(Ahmad, 1995)、韩语(Choi, 1988; Eggington, 1987)和汉语(Bloch and Chi, 1995; Hinkel, 1997)则在表达观点时似乎更倾向于谨慎和间接的风格。
Several years ago Lyons (1981: 238) observed that different languages use different linguistic means for expressing particular kinds of modality. Equally importantly, there are also variations in the certainty and confidence with which arguments are expressed in different languages. Scollon and Scollon (1995), for instance, suggest there is an Asian preference for rhetorical strategies of indirectness arising from different cultural structurings of situations and participant roles in interaction which are related to questions of interactional politeness. A number of studies have identified such variations in academic writing across languages. German and Czech, for example, appear to be more direct than English in academic contexts (Bloor and Bloor, 1991: 9; Clyne, 1987), while Finns (Mauranen, 1993b; Ventola, 1992), Japanese (Hinds, 1987; Harder, 1984), Malays (Ahmad, 1995), Koreans (Choi, 1988; Eggington, 1987) and Chinese (Bloch and Chi, 1995; Hinkel, 1997) seem to favour a more cautious and indirect style when expressing opinions.
这些差异可能会影响学生的英语写作方式,托马斯(1983)将这些社会语言沟通障碍称为“跨文化语用失败”。虽然这是一个理论尚不完善且难以在实践中应用的概念,但它提醒我们,第二语言学习者由于自身文化中不同的语言实践,可能对恰当的正式程度、直接性、礼貌等概念有不同的理解,而这些理解可能会阻碍他们的英语写作。例如,斯凯尔顿(1988)和布洛尔与布洛尔(1991)观察到,直接且不加修饰的写作方式在英语作为外语(EFL)学习者中比母语者更为常见,这一观点在对阿拉伯语、荷兰语、法语、芬兰语和其他语言群体的研究中也得到了支持(例如,斯卡塞拉和布鲁纳克,1981;克里斯莫尔等人, 1993)。有趣的是,尽管中国学生通常被认为说话含蓄,但这一观点似乎也适用于中国学生。例如, Hu等人(1982) 和 Allison (1995) 发现,中国第二语言写作者的语气比以英语为母语的学生更直接、更有权威性,并且更多地使用强烈的情态动词。
Such differences may influence how students write in English and Thomas (1983) refers to these problems of sociolinguistic miscommunication as ‘cross-cultural pragmatic failure’. While this is an under-theorized and difficult concept to apply in practice, it cautions us that L2 students may have a different understanding of appropriate formality, directness, politeness and so on as a result of the different practices which operate in their own cultures and which may hinder them when writing in English. Skelton (1988) and Bloor and Bloor (1991), for example, observe that direct and unqualified writing is more typical of EFL students than native speakers, and this view receives support in studies of Arab, Dutch, French, Finnish and other language groups (e.g. Scarcella and Brunak, 1981; Crismore et al., 1993). Interestingly, it also seems to apply to Chinese students, despite the cultural stereotype of indirectness. Hu et al., (1982) and Allison (1995), for example, found Chinese L2 writers to be more direct and authoritative in tone and to make more use of strong modals than native English-speaking students.
Hyland 和 Milton (1997) 分析了香港和英国中学毕业生撰写的包含一百万词的普通教育证书(GCE)考试试卷中的缓和语气词和加强语气词,发现虽然两组学生都大量使用情态动词和副词,但对第二语言学习者而言,运用确定性和情感表达尤为困难。香港学生使用更简单的句式,依赖的修辞手法也更为有限,并且对陈述表达了更强烈的承诺。
In an analysis of hedges and boosters in a one million word corpus of GCE exam scripts written by Hong Kong and British school leavers, Hyland and Milton (1997) found that while both student groups depended heavily on a narrow range of modal verbs and adverbs, the manipulation of certainty and affect was particularly problematic for the L2 students. The Hong Kong learners employed simpler constructions, relied on a more limited range of devices and offered stronger commitments to statements.
在这项研究中,我们发现,尽管两组使用的设备总数大致相同,平均每 55 分钟一台,但总体而言,两组使用的设备数量大致相同。就词汇而言,以英语为母语的人使用的缓和语数量大约是香港作者的两倍。在第二语言写作的文章中,超过一半的认知手段起到了强化作用:
In this study, we discovered that although both groups employed about the same number of devices overall, averaging one every 55 words, the native English speakers used about twice as many hedges as the Hong Kong writers. Over half the epistemic devices in the L2 essays functioned as boosters:
(14)海外潮流总是影响着香港人。
(14) The trend from overseas always affecting Hong Kong people.
事实上,这个问题一直备受关注。
Actually, there has been tremendous concern on this issue.
香港的繁荣发展 指日可待。
It is certain that Hong Kong will continue to develop prosperously.
这肯定会提高你的英语水平。
This will definitely improve your English.
购买昂贵的品牌产品实际上是一种奢侈的行为。
Buying expensive brand-name products is, in fact, a sumptuous activity.
相比之下,L1 样本中的大多数项目都是缓和语,通过表明该命题可能为真 (15) 或表达可能性 (16) 来标记作者的限定:
In contrast, most items in the L1 sample were hedges, marking the writer’s qualification by either indicating that the proposition was probably true (15) or conveying possibility (16):
(15)这一举措将种族主义问题推到了社会议程的前沿,从本质上讲,这是不可谴责的。
(15) It brings the issue of racism to the forefront of the social agenda in a move which cannot be essentially condemned.
在这种情况下,媒体似乎迫使人们采取了不必要的行动。
In such cases, the press appear to have forced unnecessary actions.
这很可能会引起贫困社区的不满。
This is likely to cause resentment in the poorer communities.
(16)然而,有人可能会认为这些人选择担任自己的职位,并且被视为其他人的榜样。
(16) It may be argued however that these people have chosen to be in their positions and are seen to be an example to others.
认为广播越多就越糟糕,这种说法可能过于简单化了。
More broadcasting equals worse broadcasting is perhaps too simplistic.
因此,我们可以主张制定一部全面的权利法案……
It is possible to argue, therefore, for a comprehensive Bill of Rights . . .
这种对二语作文中更确定形式的偏好,也可以从两组作者对修饰语的选择上看出。will 、may、would和always都是两组作者最常用的六个动词形式之一,但will在二语样本中的出现频率是母语样本的两倍,而would在母语样本中的出现频率是母语样本的两倍。由于这两种形式都可以用来指代未来的可能性,香港作者似乎更倾向于自信的预测,而母语者则更倾向于谨慎的表达。另一方面,may在二语作文中的出现频率大约是母语样本的两倍。对他们而言,这是表示可能性的首选标记,也表明他们更倾向于提出更为细致入微的确定性主张。在母语和第二语言语料中, “think”作为认知动词的使用几乎完全是为了表达作者的确定性,并且在第二语言语料中出现的频率几乎是母语的三倍。
This preference for more certain forms in the L2 essays can also be seen in the specific choice of modifiers by the two groups. The forms will, may, would and always were among the top six most frequently used devices of both groups, although will occurred twice as often in the L2 sample and would twice as frequently in the L1 data. As both forms can be used to refer to future probabilities, it appears that the Hong Kong writers tended to favour confident prediction and native speakers more tentative expression. May, on the other hand, occurred about twice as often in the L2 essays, being the preferred marker of possibility for them and demonstrating a stronger tendency to offer more nuanced claims of certainty. The use of think as an epistemic verb was almost exclusively employed to express the writer’s certainty in both the L1 and L2 data and occurred nearly three times as often in the latter.
关于亚洲作家对冲和夸大其词的做法,欣克尔(1997:382)认为:
In relation to hedging and boosting by Asian writers, Hinkel (1997: 382) has argued that:
基于儒家、道家和佛教哲学准则的修辞传统,其运作框架和范式与英美写作传统中接受的框架和范式明显不同,后者以亚里士多德的直接性、正当性和证明性概念为结构。
The rhetorical traditions based on Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist philosophical precepts operate within frameworks and paradigms recognizably different from those accepted in the Anglo-American writing tradition which is structured around Aristotelian notions of directness, justification and proof.
然而,尽管对比研究可能表明,来自不同文化背景的学生对写作特征的固有观念可能与英语学术环境中的写作特征有所不同,但这并不一定能预测学生实际的英语写作方式。显然,影响写作的因素有很多,文化偏好只是其中之一。
However, while contrastive studies might suggest that students from different cultures may have preconceptions about features of writing which may differ from those which operate in English academic settings, they do not necessarily predict the ways students will write in English. Clearly any number of factors can influence writing and cultural preference is just one of these.
事实上,语言能力似乎在香港的研究结果中发挥了重要作用,因为对第二语言文本的进一步分析表明,考试成绩中A至E不同能力等级的学生之间的题目分布并不均衡。有趣的是,成绩较高的学生在使用缓和语和加强语时,更接近母语人士的表达模式。而能力较弱的学生则使用了更高比例的确定性标记,并且第二语言文本中45%的缓和语出现在A级和B级学生的作业中。这表明语言能力而非文化因素的影响更为显著,并且对英语中许多说明文体所依赖的元话语惯例缺乏熟悉,可能会损害学习者的学业表现。部分原因是,这类错误往往会影响读者对文章连贯性和可理解性的判断。这些错误还会影响论证的说服力,以及对作者学术能力的评价。
In fact, language proficiency seems to have played a large part in the results of the Hong Kong study as further analysis of the L2 texts showed an uneven distribution of items between the ability bands of A to E in the exam results. Interestingly, students achieving higher grades approximated more closely in their use of hedges and boosters to native speaker patterns. Weaker students employed a significantly higher proportion of certainty markers while 45 per cent of the hedges in the L2 texts occurred in the work of grade A and B learners. This suggests the influence of proficiency rather than culture, and that a lack of familiarity with the metadiscourse conventions central to many expository genres in English may be detrimental to learners’ academic performance. This is partly because such errors can often influence readers’ judgements of coherence and comprehensibility. These errors can also effect the impact of the argument, and how the academic competence of the writer is evaluated.
6.6 总结与结论
6.6 Summary and conclusions
文化在写作中的作用仍然存在争议。批评者认为,对“文化”一词的理解往往过于粗浅,容易简化英语书面表达的本质。他们指出,在全球化快速发展的今天, “文化”一词的含义更加复杂,因为全球化质疑了特定文化影响的价值,并强调对于可接受的英语书面表达方式存在着很大的差异。事实上,Canagarajah(2002:68)指出:
The role of culture in writing remains controversial. Critics argue that conceptions of the term are often crude and function to oversimplify the nature of written English. They point instead to the complexity of the term culture in a fast-changing world where globalization questions the merits of specific cultural influences and stress that there are wide variations in what passes for acceptable written English. Canagarajah (2002: 68), in fact, points out that:
尽管写作中总会存在差异,而且其中很多差异可能源于文化,但这种影响的方式既可以是积极的,也可以是消极的,既能促进也能限制学生的写作能力。教师在指导学生写作时必须意识到所有这些可能性。更重要的是,教师必须牢记,任何人都不必被语言和文化所束缚;学生可以被教导如何巧妙地运用相互冲突的修辞结构,从而发挥自身优势。
Though difference is always going to be there in writing, and though much of it may derive from culture, the ways in which this influence takes place can be positive or negative, enabling as well as limiting, and teachers have to be aware of all these possibilities when they teach student writing. More importantly, teachers must keep in mind that no one needs to be held hostage by language and culture; students can be taught to negotiate conflicting rhetorical structures to their advantage.
因此,对比研究可以帮助教师和作家避免陷入英语文化民族中心主义的陷阱,在这种文化中,非英语写作实践被视为异常现象。
Contrastive studies may therefore help teachers and writers avoid getting trapped in an Anglophone cultural ethnocentrism where non-English writing practices appear as deviant anomalies.
本章回顾的研究表明,母语和文化对第二语言写作可能具有重要意义,并暗示尽管学术文体相对统一,但在不同的写作文化中,元话语的使用方式可能存在差异。许多人仍然认为修辞模式可能与文化相关,这种观点具有很强的直觉吸引力。例如,学术写作教师认为,这种差异可以解释其第二语言学习者英语写作实践中的一些问题。他们以此来解释为什么学生在引导读者阅读文本时似乎不太“以读者为中心”,或者为什么他们的论点比该文体通常允许的更为强烈。但是,尽管对比修辞有助于从社会而非个人缺陷的角度解释学生的写作,但我们不能简单地从文本中推断文化因素。
The studies reviewed in this chapter suggest the importance that the first language and culture may have in writing in a second language and imply that, despite the relative uniformity of academic genres, there may be variation in the ways metadiscourse is used in different writing cultures. The idea that rhetorical patterns may be related to culture remains intuitively attractive for many people. Teachers of academic writing, for instance, see such variations as offering explanations for their L2 students’ writing practices in English. They draw on them to account for why their students may seem to be less ‘reader-oriented’ in guiding readers through a text or why they make stronger claims than the conventions of the genre normally allow. But while contrastive rhetoric is helpful in providing a social, rather than individual deficit, explanation for student writing, we cannot simply read off culture from texts.
任何特定语言中都不存在单一的写作实践,这一点毋庸置疑。因此,我们必须考虑更具“动态性”和“去中心化”的文化概念,例如,要认识到各种“小型”文化(如课堂、职业、学科、机构、年龄等)如何与国家文化互动(例如,Atkinson,2004)。事实上,近年来,研究者们越来越关注以社群为基础的读写能力,因此,理解元话语使用差异不仅应考虑作者的民族文化,还应考虑文本的体裁以及文本所针对的直接话语社群。下一章,我将重点讨论其中一种社群——学术学科社群。
It is simply not the case that there is one single writing practice in any particular language and it is important to take into account more ‘dynamic’ and ‘decentred’ notions of culture, acknowledging for instance how various ‘small’ cultures such as the classroom, the professions, the disciplines, institutions, age, etc. can interact with national cultures (e.g. Atkinson, 2004). Indeed, in recent years researchers have become sensitive to a community-based orientation to literacy, so that differences in the use of metadiscourse should be understood not only in relation to the national culture of the writer, but also in relation to the genre and the immediate discourse community to which the text is addressed. It is to one such type of community, that of academic disciplines, that I turn in the next chapter.
近年来,随着研究者们越来越关注个体作为社会群体成员如何写作、使用和回应各种文体,社群的概念已成为话语分析中的一个关键思想。这种基于社群的读写能力取向强调了写作以及学习写作对于融入特定社群的重要性。应用语言学中的交际能力、教育学中的情境学习以及社会科学中的社会建构主义等概念,都促成了将社群置于写作核心的观点。事实上,社群有助于我们解释写作差异,本章将探讨社群如何帮助我们更好地解读和理解元话语的使用。
In recent years the concept of community has become a key idea in discourse analysis as researchers have become more sensitive to the ways genres are written, used and responded to by individuals acting as members of social groups. This community-based orientation to literacy therefore focuses on the importance of writing, and learning to write, as an insider of the community one wishes to engage with. Such ideas as communicative competence in Applied Linguistics, situated learning in Education, and social constructionism in the social sciences have contributed to a view which places community at the heart of writing. Community, in fact, helps us to explain writing differences, and in this chapter I examine how it helps us to better interpret and understand metadiscourse use.
7.1 社区的概念
7.1 The concept of community
社群的概念对于我们理解元话语至关重要,因为它强调了交流始终处于社会语境之中。社群有助于界定文化,将庞大的民族或族群群体缩小到人性化的尺度,同时也与文体相辅相成。事实上,文体和社群相互决定彼此的领域:它们彼此影响,相互塑造。它们共同构成了一个描述和解释意义如何社会建构的框架。个人之外的力量有助于引导目标、建立关系并最终塑造写作。
The notion of community is central to our appreciation of metadiscourse as it draws attention to the fact that communication is always situated in social contexts. Community helps to specify culture, reducing huge national or ethnic conglomerates to a human scale, but it also complements genre. In fact, genre and community determine each other’s domain: each helping to form and being formed by the other. Together they provide a descriptive and explanatory framework of how meanings are socially constructed, considering the forces outside the individual which help guide purposes, establish relationships and ultimately shape writing.
在过去的二十年中,体裁一直是探索语境化语言使用的重要工具,它使我们能够将文本视为稳定的社会行动场所,有助于协调群体和组织的运作。然而,体裁的影响或许也导致我们过分强调文本之间的相似性和对应性,而忽略了文本内部的差异。这主要是因为体裁帮助我们运用概括的力量,将修辞目的、形式和受众方面具有重要相似性的文本归为一类,然后探讨它们与其他文本类型的差异。结果,我们相对忽视了文本在不同社群间的差异。事实上,第六章讨论的跨文化比较中所发现的差异,也必须结合体裁以及文本产生的社会社群来解读和理解。
Genre has been an enormously valuable tool over the last 20 years in exploring situated language use, allowing us to see texts as stabilized sites of social action which help coordinate the work of groups and organizations. Its influence, however, has perhaps led us to overemphasize the resemblances and correspondences between texts rather than the differences within them. This is largely because genre helps us to harness the power of generalization, grouping together texts that have important similarities in terms of rhetorical purpose, form and audience, and then exploring how they differ from other text types. As a result, there has been a relative neglect of the ways texts vary across communities. In fact, the differences that can be found in the kinds of cross-cultural comparisons discussed in Chapter 6 must also be interpreted and understood in relation to both genre and the social communities where the texts are produced.
话语社群的概念使我们能够构建一个更加全面、更具社会洞察力的文本与语境理论。这一概念强调,我们通常并非用语言与整个世界交流,而是与个体以及我们所属社会群体的其他成员交流。斯韦尔斯(Swales,1990)将这些社群定义为具有集体目标或目的的群体,而其他学者则提出了一种更为弱化的关系,认为共同利益而非共同目标才是关键(约翰斯,1997;波特,1986)。例如,巴顿(Barton,1994:57)提出了一个定义,即一个可能较为松散的群体,他们参与文本的接收或创作,或两者兼而有之:
With the idea of discourse community we arrive at a more rounded and socially informed theory of texts and contexts. The concept draws attention to the idea that we do not generally use language to communicate with the world at large, but with individuals and with other members of our social groups. Swales (1990) has defined these communities as having collective goals or purposes, while other writers have suggested a weaker relationship, positing common interests, rather than goals, as essential (Johns, 1997; Porter, 1986). Barton (1994: 57), for instance, proposes a definition of a potentially loose-knit group engaged in either text reception or production, or both:
话语社群是指拥有共同文本和实践的一群人,可以是学术群体,也可以是青少年杂志的读者。事实上,话语社群可以指文本的目标受众;可以指阅读文本的人;也可以指通过阅读和写作参与一系列话语实践的人。
A discourse community is a group of people who have texts and practices in common, whether it is a group of academics, or the readers of teenage magazines. In fact, discourse community can refer to the people the text is aimed at; it can be the people who read a text; or it can refer to the people who participate in a set of discourse practices both by reading and writing.
然而,关键在于,正是作为社群成员的个体运用语言参与这些实践或实现这些目标。因此,这是一种强有力的隐喻,将作者、文本和读者联系在特定的论述空间中。
The important point here, however, is that it is individuals acting as community members who use language to engage in these practices or achieve these goals. It is, then, a powerful metaphor joining writers, texts and readers in a particular discursive space.
本质上,社群的概念将一些关键的语境要素整合在一起,这些要素对于口语和书面语篇的产生和解读至关重要。这些要素包括:情境语境,即人们对周围事物的认知;背景知识语境,包括文化知识和人际知识,即人们对世界的了解、对生活各方面的认知以及对彼此的了解;以及语境语境,即人们对自己所说的话的认知(Cutting,2002:3)。Bizzell(1982:217)同样强调“共享性”,他从“理解经验的传统共享方式”的角度探讨社群,包括共享的互动模式。Doheny-Farina(1992:296)则提到了“成员之间不成文的修辞惯例和风格实践”。
Essentially, the idea of community draws together a number of key aspects of context that are crucial to the production and interpretation of spoken and written discourse. These are the situational context in terms of what people ‘know about what they can see around them’; the background knowledge context, including cultural knowledge and interpersonal knowledge of what people know about the world, what they know about aspects of life, and what they know about each other; and the co-textual context in terms of what people ‘know about what they have been saying’ (Cutting, 2002: 3). Bizzell (1982: 217) similarly emphasizes ‘sharedness’, discussing communities in terms of ‘traditional, shared ways of understanding experience’, including shared patterns of interaction, and Doheny-Farina (1992: 296) refers to the ‘rhetorical conventions and stylistic practices that are tacit and routine for the members’.
因此,社群提供了一种原则性的方法,帮助我们理解意义如何在互动中产生,并且已被证明有助于识别作者的修辞策略如何依赖于目的、语境和受众(例如,Bruffee,1986)。因此,这一概念为我们提供了一种分析沟通的手段,将其视为一种共同的成就,将与特定目的和语境相关的社会、心理和认知因素结合起来。我们生活中大多数重要的互动都发生在特定的语境社群中,这一事实使得这些要素与特定语境相关,从而将它们统一起来(Swales,1990)。
Community thus provides a principled way of understanding how meaning is produced in interaction and has proved useful in identifying how writers’ rhetorical strategies depend on purposes, setting and audience (e.g. Bruffee, 1986). The concept therefore offers us a means of analysing communication as a joint accomplishment, uniting social, psychological and cognitive factors relevant to a particular purpose and site. The fact that most of the important interactions of our lives take place within particular discourse communities unifies these elements by making them relevant to a particular context (Swales, 1990).
但这一概念也存在批评者。例如,Canagarajah (2002)、Chin (1994) 和 Prior (1998) 都认为该术语过于结构主义、静态和决定论,过分强调共享价值观的稳定核心,并将写作脱离了个人建构意义的真实情境。显然,如果我们把社群视为遵守规则、维护共识的稳定群体,就会掩盖其潜在的巨大多样性。事实上,话语社群并非铁板一块,而是常常是混合型的,其特点是价值观和话语的多样性,以及拥有不同经历、兴趣和影响力的个体。成员往往同时属于多个社群,因此他们对任何一个社群的目标的忠诚度和参与程度都可能大相径庭。例如,许多多语学生的经历就表明了这种压力。在往返于家庭和学术社区的过程中创作(Canagarajah,1999)。
But the concept also has its critics. Canagarajah (2002), Chin (1994) and Prior (1998), for example, all view the term as too structuralist, static and deterministic, overemphasizing a stable core of shared values and removing writing from the real situations where individuals make meanings. Clearly if we see communities as stable groups conforming to rules and upholding a consensus, then we obscure their potentially tremendous diversity. Discourse communities are, in fact, not monolithic and unitary but often hybrid, characterized by varied values and discourses and by individuals with diverse experiences, interests and influence. Members often hold memberships of several communities simultaneously and so their allegiance to the goals and their participation in the practices of any one of them can very tremendously. The experiences of many multilingual students, for example, point to the stress which can be created in shuttling between their home and academic communities (Canagarajah, 1999).
当然,我们必须将社群理解为人类机构,其成员的行为和认知不仅受到制度和社会文化因素的影响,也受到个人和人际关系的影响。例如,乔利夫和布里尔(1988)认为,社群是由一系列同心圆组成,每个同心圆的成员都拥有不同的兴趣、专长和承诺。然而,这种多样性是所有群体固有的,并不一定会造成对抗和紧张关系。我们每个人都可以同时隶属于多个社群,正如伯肯科特等人(1988)所观察到的,成员可以保持多重身份,而无需否定他们所属任何一个社群的价值观和实践。
We do, of course, have to understand communities as human institutions where actions and perceptions are influenced by the personal and interpersonal, as well as the institutional and socio-cultural. Jolliffe and Brier (1988), for instance, see communities as comprising a series of concentric circles of members of varying interest, expertise and commitments. This diversity is inherent in all groups, however, and need not create antagonisms and tensions. We all b elong to many communities at the same time and, as Berkenkotter et al. (1988) observe, members can maintain multiple affiliations without rejecting the values and practices of any of the communities they belong to.
因此,对社群的此类批判使这一概念更加清晰。基林斯沃思(Killingsworth,1992)、波特(Porter,1992)和斯韦尔斯(Swales,1998)都试图从个体参与社群实践的角度重新定义这一概念,而非从对规则和目标的取向出发。如今,人们倾向于将话语社群视为一种修辞建构,它“通过实例化和参与而持续存在,而非通过成员身份和集体性而存在”(斯韦尔斯,1993:696),并在其话语中留下这种参与的痕迹。这种观点被“实践社群”这一隐喻所采纳,它将关注点从语言或社会结构转移到群体在特定情境下的实践,这些实践是由群体在追求特定目标的过程中,运用特定形式的社会互动而形成的(拉夫和温格,1991)。因此,尽管社群概念仍存在争议,但它凸显了其对社会互动的重要影响,强调了话语的社会性,并阐明了作者和读者赋予文本的意义。这对于理解元话语的运作方式至关重要。
Such critiques of community have thus sharpened the construct. Killingsworth (1992), Porter (1992) and Swales (1998) have all sought to redefine the concept in terms of an individual’s engagement in its practices, rather than orientations to rules and goals. There is now a tendency to see discourse communities as rhetorical constructs which ‘persist by instantiation and engagement, rather than existing through membership and collectivity’ (Swales, 1993: 696), with traces of this engagement in their discourses. This view is taken up in the metaphor ‘communities of practice’, which shifts the focus from language or social structure to the situated practices of groups shaped by a history of pursuing particular goals using particular forms of social interaction (Lave and Wenger, 1991). So while it remains controversial, the notion of community foregrounds an important influence on social interaction, drawing attention to the fact that discourse is socially situated and illuminating something of what writers and readers bring to a text. This is crucial to understanding the ways that metadiscourse works.
7.2 社群、学术写作和元话语
7.2 Community, academic writing and metadiscourse
在学术写作研究中,“社群”是一个尤为重要的概念,它有助于我们深入了解学科语境下的论证方式。实践有助于建构知识。例如,在科学社会学领域,理论家们认为学术话语嵌入于话语社群更广泛的论证、归属和共识形成过程中(Bruffee,1986;Rorty,1979)。写作并非仅仅记录对自然或人类世界的研究,而是有助于构建对这些世界的独特视角,这种视角受到特定群体的问题、社会实践和思维方式的影响。换言之,文本不能被视为对世界真实面貌的精确再现,因为这种再现总是经过选择、突出和符号化等行为的过滤;现实是通过本质上具有社会性的过程建构的,这些过程涉及权威、信誉和学科诉求。
Community is a particularly important concept in studies of academic writing, providing insights into how disciplinary-situated argument practices work to construct knowledge. In the sociology of science, for example, theorists have argued that academic discourse is embedded in the wider processes of argument, affiliation and consensus-making of discourse communities (Bruffee, 1986; Rorty, 1979). Rather than simply reporting studies of the natural or human worlds, writing actually helps to create a view of these worlds, influenced by the problems, social practices and ways of thinking of particular groups. In other words, texts cannot be seen as accurate representations of what the world is like because this representation is always filtered through acts of selection, foregrounding and symbolization; reality is constructed through processes that are essentially social, involving authority, credibility and disciplinary appeals.
学科社群常被比作部落(Becher,1989),每个部落都有其自身的规范、分类、知识体系、惯例和研究模式,构成了一种独立的文化(Bartholomae,1986;Swales,1990)。在每种文化中,个体都会习得专业话语能力:一种将数据和观察结果组织成对读者有意义的模式的能力。营造令人信服的读者环境需要运用学科和体裁特定的惯例,使得“发表的论文成为作者和目标读者共同创作的多层次混合体”(Knorr-Cetina,1981:106)。换言之,作为某一学科的成员进行写作,意味着要以一种同行能够理解的方式将工作文本化,使其能够被理解为“在做生物学研究”或“在做社会学研究”。这种社群对话语的约束既限制了表达方式,也赋予了作者表达该观点的能力。
Disciplinary communities have been described as tribes (Becher, 1989), each with its own norms, categorizations, bodies of knowledge, sets of conventions and modes of inquiry which comprise a separate culture (Bartholomae, 1986; Swales, 1990). Within each culture individuals acquire a competence in specialized discourses: an ability to organize data and observations into meaningful patterns for readers. Creating a convincing reader-environment involves deploying disciplinary and genre-specific conventions such that ‘the published paper is a multilayered hybrid co-produced by the authors and by members of the audience to which it is directed’ (Knorr-Cetina, 1981: 106). In other words, writing as a member of a discipline involves textualizing work in a way that colleagues can see as ‘doing biology’ or ‘doing sociology’. Such community constraints on discourse both restrict how something can be said and authorize the writer as someone competent to say it.
换句话说,我们必须将文体视为社会行动的形式,而不仅仅是语言形式,其目的在于实现社会认可的目标。作者能否成功取决于其对共享语境的构建。因此,如果我们以符合社群认可的恰当关系的方式来构建信息,就更有可能说服读者接受我们的观点(Hyland,2000 和 2002a)。例如,经济学领域的书评比语言学或化学领域的书评更具评价性(Motta-Roth,1998);公路工程领域的讲座比植物生物学领域的讲座更倾向于采用问题-解决方案的模式(Dudley-Evans,1994);心理学领域的研究文章也更注重研究本身。与英语文学相比,语言学教材更多地引用先前的研究成果(MacDonald,1994);语言学教材也比法学教材更多地引用先前的研究成果(Bhatia,1993)。正如我将要展示的,这种学科特有的实践最明显地体现在作者运用元话语来阐述论点、控制修辞风格以及吸引读者的方式上。
To put this another way, we have to see genres not simply as forms of language, but as forms of social action designed to accomplish socially recognized purposes, and the writer’s success in this depends on the projection of a shared context. We are therefore more likely to persuade readers of our ideas if we frame our messages in ways which appeal to appropriate community-recognized relationships (Hyland, 2000 and 2002a). Book reviews in Economics, for example, are more evaluative than those in Linguistics or Chemistry (Motta-Roth, 1998); lectures in Highway Engineering are more likely to follow a problem-solution pattern than those in Plant Biology (Dudley-Evans, 1994); research articles in Psychology more often foreground research methods and warrants than those in English Literature (MacDonald, 1994); and textbooks in Linguistics refer more to previous research than those in Law (Bhatia, 1993). As I shall show, such disciplinary-specific practices are most clearly seen in the ways that writers use metadiscourse to present their arguments, control their rhetorical personality and engage their readers.
尽管社群与文体之间存在重要的互动关系,但我们不应忽视语言文化对理解学术作者如何在学科写作中留下自身痕迹的影响。例如,在近期一项针对180篇分别以英语、法语和挪威语撰写的经济学、语言学和医学研究论文中内指和框架标记的研究中,Dahl(2004)发现语言和学科之间存在复杂的互动关系。语言是经济学和语言学领域最重要的变量,Dahl认为英语和挪威语中元文本的使用远高于其他语言,原因在于这两种语言都属于以作者为主导的文化,而法语则属于以读者为主导的文化。在所有三种语言中,医学领域的互动性元话语都明显较少。这是因为熟悉医学报告内容呈现方式的专家读者无需依赖任何文本指称特征,因为医学报告通常按照IMRD(引言-方法-结果-讨论)的固定顺序呈现内容。另一方面,经济学和语言学的文本结构不太正式,更多地依赖于论证来得出结论,这使得“民族”文化在这些学科中比在医学中更为重要。
But while community interacts with genre in important ways, we should not neglect the influence of language culture in understanding how academic writers leave traces of themselves in disciplinary writing. In a recent study of endophorics and frame markers in 180 research articles in Economics, Linguistics and Medicine written in English, French and Norwegian, for example, Dahl (2004) found that language and discipline interacted in complex ways. Language was the most important variable in Economics and Linguistics, where Dahl attributes the far greater use of metatext in English and Norwegian to the idea that these are both writer-responsible cultures while French is reader-responsible. In all three languages, Medicine evidenced far less interactive metadiscourse. This is because no text-referring features are needed by expert readers familiar with the ways that medical reporting presents content in a fixed sequence of IMRD (Introduction – Methods – Results – Discussion) categories. Economics and Linguistics, on the other hand, have a less formalized text structure and rely more on creating their findings through argumentation, which makes it more likely that ‘national’ culture will be more important than it is in Medicine.
简而言之,写作是一种社群活动,而元话语的有效运用取决于作者对恰当的人际关系和互文关系的观察。作者若想发表作品并在各自领域产生影响,就必须充分利用他们对这些关系的理解。因此,话语社群的概念提供了一种解释共同预设以及能够唤起这些预设的元话语策略的方法。要理解元话语的语用学,就必须将其置于赋予其意义的文体和社群之中。在本章中,我将扩展第五章中对研究论文和本科教材的讨论,并在此基础上,探讨文体如何影响元话语的运用,进而探究学科在作者与读者互动中所扮演的角色。
In short, writing is a community-situated activity and the effective use of metadiscourse depends on the writer’s observation of appropriate interpersonal and intertextual relationships. For writers to publish and have an influence on their fields, they must exploit their understanding of these relationships. The notion of discourse community therefore provides a means of accounting for shared presuppositions, and the metadiscourse strategies which can evoke these. To understand the pragmatics of metadiscourse, then, it must be located in the genres and communities which give it meaning. In this chapter I will extend the discussion of research articles and undergraduate textbooks discussed in Chapter 5, building on the ways genres affect the deployment of metadiscourse to explore the role that disciplines play in writer–reader interactions.
7.3 跨学科文章中的元话语差异
7.3 Metadiscourse variation in articles across disciplines
研究论文这一文体中,读者导向对于实现修辞目标至关重要。尽管它通常被认为是一种以命题为主且客观的文体,但知识的认证本身就是一个社会过程,涉及做出能够被读者识别为具有说服力的语言选择。因此,如果我们像罗蒂(Rorty,1979:170)那样将知识视为“信念的社会论证”,那么作者显然必须考虑预期读者的反应,预判他们的背景知识、处理问题、兴趣以及人际交往期望。与此同时,读者也在试图预测作者的思路,并从自身研究目标的角度对作者进行提问(巴泽曼,1988)。因此,学术作者力求创作出能够引发读者特定反应的文本,通过“将话语编织成他人认为真实的结构”(哈里斯,1991:289),既向读者传递信息,又说服读者相信其陈述的正确性。
The research article is a genre where an orientation to readers is crucial in securing rhetorical objectives. While it is often considered a predominantly propositional and impersonal genre, the act of accrediting knowledge is a social pro cess and involves making linguistic choices which an audience will recognize as persuasive. So if, with Rorty (1979: 170), we view knowledge as ‘the social justification of belief’, then it is clear that writers must consider the reactions of their expected audience, anticipating its background knowledge, processing problems, interests and interpersonal expectations. Simultaneously, readers are trying to predict lines of thought and interrogate authors from the perspective of their personal research goals (Bazerman, 1988). Thus academic writers seek to produce texts that evoke specific responses in an active audience, both informing and persuading readers of the truth of their statements by seeking to ‘weave discourse into fabrics that others perceive as true’ (Harris, 1991: 289).
元话语促进了学科内部的知识生产,并推动了相关的社会互动。由于学科各异,元话语的使用和意义也因学科而异。表7.1展示了第五章讨论的四个学科中元话语的分布情况,从中我们可以窥见这种差异。
Metadiscourse facilitates the social interactions which contribute to knowledge production within disciplines and, because disciplines are different, its use and meaning varies between disciplines. We can see something of this variation in Table 7.1, which shows the distribution of metadiscourse in the four disciplines discussed in Chapter 5.
表 7.1学术学科中每 1000 字的元话语(占总数的百分比)
Table 7.1 Metadiscourse in academic disciplines per 1,000 words (% of total)
表格显示,各学科元话语的总体频率相当接近,市场营销领域的元话语数量比其他学科多约20%,这主要是由于他们使用了更多的互动标记和缓和语。天体物理学家使用了更多的过渡词和内指;生物学家使用了更多的证据性词语和代码注释;应用语言学家则使用了更多的强化语。然而,这些频率中最引人注目的一点是,应用语言学和市场营销领域互动性元话语的使用频率远高于其他学科。大约三分之二的互动形式出现在非专业领域。换句话说,我们看到不同学科的作者以不同的方式呈现自身、自身作品以及自身读者,这一观察结果在7.4节讨论的一项基于更大语料库的研究中得到了证实。
The table shows that the overall frequency of metadiscourse was fairly similar across the disciplines, with about 20 per cent more items in Marketing because of more engagement markers and hedges. Astrophysicists used substantially more transitions and endophorics; biologists more evidentials and code glosses; and applied linguists more boosters. The most striking aspect of these frequencies, however, is the far heavier use of interactional metadiscourse in Applied Linguistics and Marketing than in the sciences. Some two-thirds of all interactional forms occurred in the soft fields. In other words, we see that writers in different disciplines represent themselves, their work and their readers in different ways, and this observation is confirmed in studies of a much larger corpus discussed in 7.4.
7.4 跨学科文章中的互动元话语
7.4 Interactional metadiscourse in articles across disciplines
一系列针对八个学科240篇研究论文中元话语的后续研究表明,人文社科领域的作者在元话语方面表现得更为明确、更具参与性和个人色彩。与“硬”科学领域的论文相比,哲学、社会学、应用语言学和市场营销等“软”领域论文的互动元话语成分更多。这些更具论述性的领域包含的互动元话语成分比工程和科学论文多75%(表7.2)。这些模式与我们的直觉相符,即科学领域倾向于产生更客观、或至少更少关注读者的文本。更准确地说,这些模式表明了语言资源如何调节其使用语境。也就是说,元话语模式反映了创造它们的学科的知识领域和论证形式,我将在下文中对此进行阐述。
A series of follow-up studies of metadiscourse in 240 research articles from eight disciplines reveals that writers in the humanities and social sciences take far more explicitly involved and personal positions than those in the ‘hard’ sciences. The more discursive ‘soft’ fields of Philosophy, Sociology, Applied Linguistics and Marketing contained 75 per cent more interactional metadiscourse items than the engineering and science papers (Table 7.2). These patterns coincide with our intuitions that the sciences tend to produce more impersonal, or at least less reader-inclusive, texts. More precisely, however, they indicate how the resources of language mediate the contexts in which they are used. That is, metadiscourse patterns reflect the knowledge domains and argument forms of the disciplines that create them, as I will seek to explain below.
表 7.2 140 万词语料库中的互动元话语特征(每 1000 词)
Table 7.2 Interactional metadiscourse features in 1.4 million word corpus (per 1,000 words)
i. 对冲和助推
i. Hedges and boosters
这些沟通策略旨在识别偶然性,并表明作者愿意提供的协商空间。正如我们在第五章和第六章中所看到的,在学术话语中,这些策略通过体现作者对命题真伪的信心程度以及对读者的态度,营造出一种修辞性和互动性的氛围。作者会权衡自己的立场,判断自己对数据的解读有多确定,以及这种确定性可能会对读者的反应产生怎样的影响。
These are communicative strategies for recognizing contingency and indicating the room the writer is willing to offer for negotiation. As we saw in Chapters 5 and 6, in academic discourse they contribute to a rhetorical and interactive tenor by carrying the writer’s degree of confidence in the truth of a proposition and an attitude to the audience. Writers weigh up their commitment by deciding how certain their interpretations of data are and the effect this commitment might have on readers’ responses.
一方面,支持者试图压制其他可能性,他们以十足的信心提出自己的主张,同时标榜自己与读者的参与、团结和互动(Hyland,1998d)。在这种情况下,作者预料到读者可能会有反应,但却选择将它们拒之门外:
On the one hand, boosters seek to suppress alternatives, presenting the proposition with conviction while marking involvement, solidarity and engagement with readers (Hyland, 1998d). Here the writer anticipates possible responses from readers but chooses to shut them out:
(1)这使我们与柯里(Currie)的解释相矛盾,因为静态图像肯定无法激发我们识别的能力。运动。如果真是如此,我们就会看到图像本身在运动。除了少数有趣的例外情况外,我们显然不会将静态图像视为运动。那么,假设我们说静态图像只描绘瞬间。这同样会带来问题,因为它暗示我们具有识别瞬间的能力,而这似乎非常值得怀疑。
(1) This brings us into conflict with Currie’s account, for static images surely cannot trigger our capacity to recognize movement. If that were so, we would see the image as itself moving. With a few interesting exceptions we obviously do not see a static image as moving. Suppose, then, that we say that static images only depict instants. This too creates problems, for it suggests that we have a recognitional capacity for instants, an d this seems highly dubious.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
另一方面,缓和语通过强调其主观性,使命题显得不确定。这表达了作者愿意对某个主张进行协商,从而降低其承诺程度,并表达对其他观点的尊重(Myers,1989;Hyland,1998a):
On the other hand, hedges cast a proposition as contingent by highlighting its subjectivity. This expresses the writer’s willingness to negotiate a claim thereby reducing commitment and conveying respect for alternative views (Myers, 1989; Hyland, 1998a):
(2)我们的研究结果表明,实验室人工实验中快速的冻融循环可能导致栓塞的假象形成。这类实验可能无法定量地反映自然界冬季冻融过程中形成的栓塞量。至少在灌木丛地区,低温事件通常会导致缓慢的冻融循环。
(2) Our results suggest that rapid freeze and thaw rates during artificial experiments in the laboratory may cause artifactual formation of embolism. Such experiments may not quantitatively represent the amount of embolism that is formed during winter freezing in nature. In the chaparral at least, low temperature episodes usually result in gradual freeze—thaw events.
(生物学)
(Biology)
人文社科论文中,缓和语和强化语的使用频率往往更高,总体使用量约为其他学科的2.5倍,其中缓和语的使用尤为突出(见表7.2)。这主要是因为软知识领域通常比硬科学更具解释性,抽象程度更低,其论证形式更依赖于对话式的参与和对不同声音的更明确认可。软知识领域的研究更容易受到语境因素的影响,对变量的控制较少,研究结果更加多样化,且通常缺乏明确的论断依据。因此,软知识领域的作者无法像其他学科那样,基于共同的假设来自信地报告他们的研究成果。他们必须更多地引导读者关注话语社群中关于论断的协商过程,关注论证本身,而不是相对未经中介的现实世界现象。
Both hedges and boosters tended to be more common in the humanities and social science papers with about 2.5 times as many devices overall and hedges particularly strongly represented (see Table 7.2). This is mainly because the soft-knowledge fields are typically more interpretive and less abstract than the hard sciences and their forms of argument rely more on a dialogic engagement and more explicit recognition of alternative voices. Research is influenced far more by contextual factors, there is less control of variables, more diversity of research outcomes, and generally fewer unequivocal bases for accepting claims. Writers in the soft fields cannot therefore report their research with the same confidence of shared assumptions. They must rely far more on focusing readers on the claim-making negotiations of the discourse community, the arguments themselves, rather than relatively unmediated real-world phenomena.
从某种意义上说,这意味着在软学科领域,论点必须更加谨慎地表达,通过使用更多的缓和语气,对社群中的异质性保持开放态度:
In one way, this means that arguments have to be expressed more cautiously in the soft disciplines, remaining open to heteroglossic diversity in the community by using more hedges:
(3)在我看来,威尔逊的理论远非普遍适用,这让我们感到失望。
(3) Wilson leaves us disappointed, it seems to me, in the sense that his theory is far from being general.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
我们初步认为,《太阳报》的极简风格给人一种工人阶级语言或受限代码的印象,而《泰晤士报》冗长的措辞,尤其是其冗长的限定词和并列成分,让人想起学术性的、正式的论述。
We tentatively suggest that the Sun’s minimalist style creates an impression of working-class language, or restricted code, while the very wordy Times’ themes, especially their long qualifiers and apposition elements, remind one of academic, formal discourse.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
方法论和研究结果更容易受到质疑,这也意味着软科学领域的作者需要更加努力地证明其作品的重要性,以对抗其他解读。这意味着他们还必须限制或压制可能存在的异议声音,通过强化自身立场来凸显其立场,从而凭借论证的力量说服读者。以下两位受访者的评论体现了这种观点:
The fact that methodologies and results are more open to question also means that writers in the soft fields need to work harder to establish the significance of their work against alternative interpretations. This means they also have to restrict, or fend off, possible alternative voices, closing them down using boosters to emphasize the strength of the writer’s commitment, and thereby convince the reader through the force of the argument. Two comments from informants typify this view:
你必须让别人看到你所说的话,看到它们就是 你的论点。这才能赋予你可信度。这才是关键所在。
You have to be seen to believe what you say. That they are your arguments. It’s what gives you credibility. It’s the whole point.
(哲学访谈)
(Philosophy interview)
我非常清楚,写作时我是在营造一种权威的形象,我真的很喜欢投入到我的作品中,并把它公之于众。坚定、投入。这就是我努力想要传达的声音,即使我不确定,我也想为自己所说的话负责。
I’m very much aware that I’m building a façade of authority when I write, I really like to get behind my work and get it out there. Strong. Committed. That’s the voice I’m trying to promote, even when I’m uncertain I want to be behind what I say.
(社会学访谈)
(Sociology interview)
这种投入在以下摘录中显而易见:
This kind of commitment is evident in these extracts:
(4) 许多论证确实涉及多个前提。
(4) It is certainly true that many arguments involve multiple premises.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
这一结果无疑归因于香港即将并入中华人民共和国。
This particular result is undoubtedly attributable to the impending incorporation of Hong Kong into the People’s Republic of China.
(营销)
(Marketing)
争论在硬核领域截然不同。科学领域。实证主义经验认识论的一个重要方面是,个人权威次于文本权威,事实应当“自行说话”。作者通常试图用语言的客观性来掩盖其解释责任和修辞身份。较少使用缓和语和增强语是尽量减少研究者在解释数据、评估论断和吸引读者方面作用的一种方式。增强语也更常以非人称的方式表达,更肯定的论断大多局限于具体的实验结果,要么用“建立”和“显示”等动词暗示数据与论断之间关系的强度,要么用“预测”和“将”等动词表达预期结果的确定性。这些形式比“认为”、“相信”和“怀疑”等认知动词的主观含义更少,也更容易与无生命主体结合使用。
Argument is very different in the hard sciences. An important aspect of a positivist-empirical epistemology is that the authority of the individual is secondary to the authority of the text and facts should be allowed to ‘speak for themselves’. Writers generally seek to disguise both their interpretive responsibilities and their rhetorical identities behind a screen of linguistic objectivity. The less frequent use of hedges and boosters is one way of minimizing the researcher’s role in interpreting data, evaluating claims and appealing to readers. Boosters are also more often expressed impersonally with more assertive claims largely restricted to specific experimental results, either suggesting the strength of the relationship between data and claims with verbs such as establish and show, or expressing the certainty of expected outcomes, often with predict and will. These forms carry less subjective connotations than cognition verbs such as think, believe and suspect, and are also more easily combined with inanimate subjects.
(5) X射线衍射分析表明,该复合材料由基体中的xSiNa和siN以及Hi-Nicalon纤维中的SiC组成。
(5) X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the composite consists of xSiNa and siN from the matrix and SiC from the Hi-Nicalon fibres.
(物理)
(Physics)
图 7 显示了燃烧器升温过程中传热的变化程度。
Figure 7 demonstrates the degree to which heat transfer varies during combustor warm-up.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
因此,各学科的主要区别在于,硬科学领域更倾向于采用非个人化的策略。科学和工程论文中更多地使用情态动词作为缓和语气和加强语气,这种策略淡化了评价者的个人作用,从而促进了非个人化策略的运用。
The main disciplinary distinctions thus involved a preference for impersonal strategies in the hard sciences. This was assisted by the greater use of modal verbs acting as hedges and boosters in the science and engineering papers, a strategy which downplays the person making the evaluation:
(6)上述理论只是对可能产生或不产生偏振效应的各种机制和配置提供了一些见解。
(6) The theory given above simply provided some insight into the various mechanisms and configurations that might or might not yield a polarimetric effect.
(物理)
(Physics)
四个数值之间存在良好的相关性。对于三裂弧菌(V. trifidum),方差分析显示,从 L 到 L' 再到 FI,数值均显著增加,这可以解释为反映了真菌定殖的动态变化。
There was a good correlation between the four values. For V. trifidum, ANOVA showed a significant increase from L to L’ and FI, which could be interpreted as reflecting the dynamics of fungal colonization.
(生物学)
(Biology)
总而言之,软性学科的作者不仅普遍使用更多的缓和语气词和增强语气词,而且更依赖于个人表达。我们有充分的理由理解这些学科偏好,它们并非仅仅是对武断惯例的盲从,而是理性地尝试充分利用语言资源,以便与同行有效互动,并争取他人认同自己的观点。
To summarize, not only do writers in the soft fields generally use more hedges and boosters, but they also rely more on a personal projection. There are good reasons for understanding these disciplinary preferences not merely as obedience to arbitrary conventions, but as rational attempts to make the best use of linguistic resources to effectively interact with colleagues and secure agreement for one’s arguments.
二、自我提及
ii. Self-mention
如上所述,元话语选择明确地提及作者与作者身份和权威密切相关(Ivanic,1998)。在研究写作中,策略性地提及作者本人能够通过表达自己的信念、强调自己对该领域的贡献以及寻求对其工作的认可来确立权威(Kuo,1999)。因此,提及作者本人能够清晰地向读者表明应从哪个角度解读其论述,从而将自己的作品与他人的作品区分开来。在本文所涵盖的学科中,约69%的提及作者本人的案例出现在人文和社会科学论文中,平均每篇文章有38次提及,而科学和工程领域的论文平均每篇只有17次提及。这种差异反映了不同领域的作者在呈现研究成果和说服读者接受其观点方面截然不同的方式。
As noted above, metadiscourse choices which realize explicit writer presence are closely associated with authorial identity and authority (Ivanic, 1998). In research writing the strategic use of self-mention allows writers to claim such authority by expressing their convictions, emphasizing their contribution to the field, and seeking recognition for their work (Kuo, 1999). Self-mention thus sends a clear indication to the reader of the perspective from which their statements should be interpreted, distinguishing their own work from that of others. In the disciplines represented here some 69 per cent of all cases of self-mention were in the humanities and social science papers, with an average of 38 per article, compared with only 17 per paper in science and engineering. This distinction reflects the very different ways writers in these domains represent their research and persuade readers to accept their claims.
硬科学作家通常力求通过对有限数量的受控变量进行精确测量和审查,来建立经验上的统一性。研究通常包括开展实验,以提出针对特定学科问题的解决方案,并且通常涉及熟悉的程序、大致可预测的结果以及相对明确的可接受性标准(例如,Becher,1989;Whitley,1984)。因此,科学家可以淡化他们在研究中的个人作用,从而突出所研究的现象、研究活动的可重复性以及研究结果的普遍性。通过选择一种不那么引人注目或个人化的写作风格,他们暗示研究结果不受个人影响,从而增强了其解释的客观性,并将自身的个人因素置于次要地位。与自然之声相呼应。我的一位受访者明确表达了这种观点:
Hard science writers are generally seeking to establish empirical uniformities through precise measurement and scrutiny of a limited number of controlled variables. Research usually consists of conducting experiments to propose solutions to specific disciplinary problems and typically involves familiar procedures, broadly predictable outcomes and relatively clear criteria of acceptability (e.g. Becher, 1989; Whitley, 1984). Scientists can therefore downplay their personal role in the research to highlight the phenomena under study, the replicability of research activities and the generality of the findings. By electing to adopt a less intrusive or personal style, they suggest that research outcomes are unaffected by individuals, strengthening the objectivity of their interpretations and subordinating their own voice to that of nature. One of my respondents expressed this view clearly:
我认为,如果论文能够客观地呈现研究过程,而不掺杂“我们做了这个”和“我们认为那样”之类的表述,那么它的质量会更高。当然,我们知道研究人员会进行解读等等,但这只是理所当然的,是背景的一部分。我关注的是研究本身是否有趣,至于具体是谁做了什么,其实并不重要……理论上,任何人都可以遵循相同的步骤,得到相同的结果。当然,声誉很重要,我通常会在阅读论文之前先了解作者,但关键在于结果是否合理。
I feel a paper is stronger if we are allowed to see what was done without ‘we did this’ and ‘we think that’. Of course we know there are researchers there, making interpretations and so on, but this is just assumed. It’s part of the background. I’m looking for something interesting in the study and it shouldn’t really matter who did what in any case . . . In theory anyone should be able to follow the same procedures and get the same results. Of course reputation is important and I often look at the writer before I look at a paper, but the important thing is whether the results seem right.
(生物学面试)
(Biology interview)
相比之下,软知识论文中较高的自我提及率表明了一种截然不同的修辞立场。在软知识领域,建立恰当的作者形象并与读者保持有效的个人互动,是探索实体间关系和联系的有效策略。这些实体之间的关系和联系通常比硬科学领域更为具体、更难以精确衡量且界限模糊。变量往往更加异质,因果关系也更加薄弱。成功的沟通更多地取决于作者在文本中展现真实自我的能力。通过遵循学科规范并体现适当自信和权威的自我提及,作者可以塑造一个睿智、可信且引人入胜的同事形象。
In contrast, the high proportion of self-mention in the soft-knowledge papers suggests a quite different rhetorical stance. Establishing an appropriately authorial persona and maintaining an effective degree of personal engagement with one’s audience are valuable strategies for probing relationships and connections between entities that are generally more particular, less precisely measurable and less clear-cut than in the hard sciences. Variables are often more heterogeneous and causal connections more tenuous. Successful communication depends far more on the author’s ability to invoke a real writer in the text. Self-mention can help construct an intelligent, credible and engaging colleague by presenting an authorial self following the norms of the discipline and reflecting an appropriate degree of confidence and authority:
使用“我”可以强调你所做的工作,突出你在任何研究成果中的贡献。我注意到论文中经常使用这种写法,我自己也经常使用。
Using ‘I’ emphasizes what you have done. What is yours in any piece of research. I notice it in papers and use it a lot myself.
(社会学访谈)
(Sociology interview)
在哲学中,人称代词“我”非常重要。它不仅表明这是你独特的观点,也表明你相信自己所说的话。它向你的同事展示了你对这些问题的看法,以及他们对这些问题的立场。它标明了彼此之间的差异。
The personal pronoun ‘I’ is very important in philosophy. It not only tells people that it is your own unique point of view, but that you believe what you are saying. It shows your colleagues where you stand in relation to the issues and in relation to where they stand on them. It marks out the differences.
(哲学访谈)
(Philosophy interview)
因此,第一人称有助于作者他们在文章中确立个人立场,并将自己的作品与他人的作品区分开来。以这种方式区分作者的身份和观点,主要是人文和社会科学论文的功能。
The first person therefore assists authors to make a personal standing in their texts and to demarcate their own work from that of others. Distinguishing who they are and what they have to say in this way is principally a function of the humanities and social science papers.
三、态度指标
iii. Attitude markers
这些手法表明了作者的情感态度,而非认知态度,它们对命题赋予了明确的、可分级的正面或负面价值(例如,重要/非常重要)。正如胡德(Hood,2004)所指出的,在学术写作中,态度通常通过对概念内容的分级来表达,尤其体现在作者传达其对结果、实体或行为的判断和态度的力度上。虽然态度在文本中通过从属关系、比较级、进行时态、标点符号、文本位置等方式得以体现,但最明确地体现态度的还是态度动词(例如,同意,更喜欢)、句子副词(例如,不幸的是,希望如此)和形容词(例如,合适的,合乎逻辑的,卓越的)。
These devices indicate the writer’s affective, rather than epistemic, attitudes, encoding an explicit positive or negative value that is gradable (e.g. important/very important) to propositions. As Hood (2004) notes, in academic writing attitude is frequently expressed through the grading of ideational content, particularly the force by which writers convey their judgements and attitudes towards results, entities or behaviours. While attitude is expressed throughout a text by the use of subordination, comparatives, progressive particles, punctuation, text location and so on, it is most explicitly signalled by attitude verbs (e.g. agree, prefer), sentence adverbs (unfortunately, hopefully) and adjectives (appropriate, logical, remarkable).
再次强调,这种明确的判断凸显了作者的个人特质,因此在人文社科类论文中更为常见,它们有助于塑造作者的形象,并建立与学科共同体的联系。通过暗示对共同态度、价值观和对材料的反应的预设,作者既表达了自己的立场,又将读者拉入一种认同的共谋之中,以至于往往难以对这类判断提出异议。
Once again, such explicit judgements foreground the writer and so are found more frequently in the humanities and social sciences papers where they contribute to a writer’s persona and establish a link with the disciplinary community. By signalling an assumption of shared attitudes, values and reactions to material, writers both express a position and suck readers into a conspiracy of agreement so that it can often be difficult to dispute such judgements.
(7)最令人惊讶的事实是,据报道成功的搜索并不是源于使用额外列中的编码信息,该列包含明确的句法代码。
(7) The most surprising fact to emerge was that the searches reported to be successful did not stem from the use of coded information in the extra column, which contains explicit syntactic codes.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
当我们注意到一个非常不寻常的结果 时,第一个线索就出现了。
The first clue of this emerged when we noticed a quite extraordinary result.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
这一时期还出现了许多其他重要变化,例如:出生率下降,职业女性人数增加,零售业态的改变,所有这些都对消费者的行为产生了重大影响。
This period has also seen many other important changes such as: falling birth-rates, an increasing number of working women, and changing retail formats, all of which have had significant impacts on consumer behaviour.
(营销)
(Marketing)
同样,就像缓和语气和加强语气一样,每一种态度表达都能在文本中逐步构建出整体态度,因为多个态度表达会相互叠加。例如,在下面的例子中,态度标记的累积强化了引言的负面语气,从而营造出一种修辞效果,构建出一个值得研究的问题。
Equally, as with hedges and boosters, each instance of attitude can contribute to developing an overall attitude in a text as the multiple instances accumulate one with the other. In the examples below, for instance, the build-up of attitude markers amplifies the negative tone of the introduction to create a rhetorical effect which constructs a problematic issue worthy of research.
(8)凶杀后自杀一直是犯罪学理论和研究中被忽视的领域。现有研究存在一系列方法论上的局限性,例如样本量小、缺乏系统的多变量分析等。
(8) Homicide followed by suicide has been a neglected area in criminological theory and research. The work that exists is marked by a series of methodological limitations, such as small samples and lack of systemati c multivariate analysis.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
最近,威廉·布拉特纳援引康德的先验/经验区分来 解释这种明显的矛盾之处。尽管他对《存在与时间》的解读颇具匠心,但要将其核心论点付诸实践仍存在诸多困难。此外,我认为这种解读也未能捕捉到海德格尔对现实主义和唯心主义的公开敌意。
Recently, William Blattner has explained the apparent ambivalence by appealing to Kant’s transcendental/empirical distinction. Although an ingenious reading of Being and Time, there are a number of difficulties involved in cashing out its central claims. I argue that it fails, moreover, to capture Heidegger’s avowed animus toward both realism and idealism.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
同样,以这种方式构建研究空间的态度标记集群在软知识论文中更为常见。在硬科学领域,研究主题往往以现有研究的线性发展形式呈现,论文旨在填补现有知识中已知的空白。
Once again, clusters of attitude markers used to create a research space in this way are more common in the soft-knowledge papers. In the hard sciences research topics tend to be presented as linear developments of existing research, where papers contribute to recognized gaps in existing knowledge.
更普遍而言,在学科论证中,科学更注重可验证的概括性结论,而非对个体进行解读,因此,研究实践以及所使用的方法、程序和设备承载着更大的责任。然而,在人文社科领域,作者较少依赖已验证的定量方法来论证其观点,这就增加了对更明确评估的需求。态度元话语在此更为突出,因为它有助于构建令人信服的论述,并建立个人信誉、批判性洞察力和学科能力。
More generally in disciplinary argument, the sciences emphasize demonstrable generalizations rather than interpreting individuals, so greater burden is placed on research practices and the methods, procedures and equipment used. Writers in the soft fields, however, are less able to rely on proven quantitative methods to establish their claims and this increases the need for more explicit evaluation. Attitudinal metadiscourse is more prominent here as it helps create a convincing discourse and establish personal credibility, critical insight and disciplinary competence.
四、参与度指标
iv. Engagement markers
这些技巧指的是作者引导读者参与话语、建立联系并预判其可能提出的异议的各种方式。基于他们在话语社群中阅读文本的经验,作者会预测读者可能对其论点作出的反应。他们知道哪些内容可能具有说服力,读者在理解论点时可能需要哪些帮助,他们可能会提出哪些异议等等。因此,这种受众评估过程有助于作者构建有效的论证思路,并且与其他元话语选项一样,也揭示了语言与特定文化和制度语境之间的关联方式(Hyland,2001a)。本节余下部分将详细阐述关键的互动特征。
These devices refer to the various ways writers bring readers into the discourse to relate to them and anticipate their possible objections. Based on their experiences with texts in the discourse community, writers make predictions about how readers are likely to react to their arguments. They know what they are likely to find persuasive, where they will need help in interpreting the argument, what objections they are likely to raise and so on. This process of audience evaluation therefore assists writers in constructing an effective line of reasoning and, like other metadiscourse options, also points to the ways language is related to specific cultural and institutional contexts (Hyland, 2001a). The remainder of this section will elaborate the key engagement features.
a. 读者代词 是让读者参与话语的最明确方式,也是语料库中最常见的互动特征,在软学科论文中出现频率超过80%。使用“你”和“你的”是作者承认读者存在的最清晰方式,但在哲学以外的领域却很少见,或许是因为它们暗示了参与者之间的距离。相反,人们非常重视通过包容性的“我们”来将作者和读者联系起来。包容性的指称诉诸学术团结,并通过将作者和读者都构建为具有共同学科认同的理解和目标的参与者,传递出清晰的成员身份信号。我的受访者对此深有体会:
a. Reader pronouns are the most explicit way that readers are brought into a discourse and were the most frequent engagement feature in the corpus, with over 80 per cent occurring in the soft-discipline papers. You and your are the clearest way a writer can acknowledge the reader’s presence, but these are rare outside of Philosophy, perhaps because they imply a distance between participants. Instead there is enormous emphasis on binding writer and reader together through inclusive we. Inclusive reference appeals to scholarly solidarity and sends a clear signal of membership by constructing both the writer and the reader as participants with mutual, discipline-identifying understandings and goals. This was apparent to my informants:
这有助于在社交网络中找到你的位置。这表明你正在做和思考他们可能会做和思考的事情。或者至少是你希望他们做的事情。
It helps to locate you in a network. It shows that you are just doing and thinking what they might do and think. Or what you would like them to, anyway.
(社会学访谈)
(Sociology interview)
我经常用“我们”来指代读者。我想这体现了一种集体努力的理念,即我们共同的目标和愿望。我从未将其视为一种策略,但我认为我确实是在试图引导读者与我同行。
I often use ‘we’ to include readers. I suppose it brings out something of the collective endeavour, what we all know and want to accomplish. I’ve never thought of it as a strategy, but I suppose I am trying to lead readers along with me.
(机械工程面试)
(Mechanical Engineering interview)
读者代词也声称作者既展现了权威性,又体现了社群性,在与读者对话的同时,也展现出一种自信的姿态。通过将读者的潜在观点融入论述,作者能够预先考虑到读者的异议,并主动表达他们的关切和看法,从而建立起同侪关系和权威性。这样,作者就能引导读者理解论证过程,并最终得出他们所期望的解读,正如以下示例所示:
Reader pronouns also claim authority as well as communality, addressing the reader from a position of confidence at the same time as they set up a dialogue. By weaving the potential point of view of readers into the discourse, writers are able to claim collegiality and authority as they anticipate reader objections, stepping in to voice their concerns and views. Thus we helps guide readers through an argument and towards a preferred interpretation, as can be seen here:
(9)既然我们有了一个看似合理的描绘理论,我们就应该能够回答静态图像描绘的是什么这个问题。但事实证明,这并非易事。实际上,我们似乎面临着一个两难困境。假设我们认为静态图像可以描绘运动。这会使我们与柯里(Currie)的论述产生冲突……
(9) Now that we have a plausible theory of depiction, we should be able to answer the question of what static images depict. But this turns out to be not at all a straightforward matter. We seem, in fact, to be faced with a dilemma. Suppose we say that static images can depict movement. This brings us into conflict with Currie’s account, . . .
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
尽管我们对 93D 位点转录本的确切生物学功能缺乏了解,但它们的序列为我们提供了一个理想的系统,可以识别胚胎细胞核中特定的转录活性位点。
Although we lack knowledge about a definitive biological function for the transcripts from the 93D locus, their sequences provide us with an ideal system to identify a specific transcriptionally active site in embryonic nuclei.
(生物学)
(Biology)
我的线人也注意到,这种团结的微妙变化体现在读者明确的立场定位上:
My informants also noted this shading of solidarity into explicit positioning of the reader:
我想,“我们”这个词有助于营造积极的回应——就像我们都在一起一样。我用它来表明我和对方想法一致,基于相同的假设,提出相同的问题。
I suppose ‘we’ helps to finesse a positive response – we are all in this together kind of thing. I use it to signal that I am on the same wavelength, drawing on the same assumptions and asking the same questions.
(市场营销面试)
(Marketing interview)
我试图鼓励他们认同我的理解,而使用“我们”有助于突出共同的观点。是的,当然。
I am trying to encourage them to share my interpretations and using ‘we’ helps foreground a common response. Yes, definitely.
(社会学访谈)
(Sociology interview)
b. 个人旁白 会短暂地打断论述,对已阐述的内容进行评论。虽然这表达了作者对文本的观点,但通过在论述过程中转向读者,作者承认并回应了活跃的读者群体,通常是为了开启一段简短的人际对话。虽然这种用法相对较少,但它却是一种……这种以读者为中心的策略的关键在于,评论往往比论述本身的命题发展更能增进读者与读者之间的关系:
b. Personal asides briefly interrupt the argument to offer a comment on what has been said. While this expresses a writer perspective on the text, by turning to the reader in mid-flow the writer acknowledges and responds to an active audience, often to initiate a brief interpersonal dialogue. While it is used relatively infrequently, this is a key reader-oriented strategy as such comments often add more to the relationship than to the propositional development of the discourse:
(10)而且——我相信许多TESOL专业人士都会欣然承认——批判性思维现在已经开始发挥作用,尤其是在第二语言写作领域。
(10) And – as I believe many TESOL professionals will readily acknowledge – critical thinking has now begun to make its mark, particularly in the area of L2 composition.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
他最主要的原因是激起了学术界的不信任,这既是因为他尖锐的观点(诚然,这些观点往往考虑不周),也是因为他的政治观点。
He above all provoked the mistrust of academics, both because of his trenchant opinions (often, it is true, insufficiently thought out) and his political opinions.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
指示词所具有的刚性似乎由约定俗成决定(顺便说一句,这正是维特根斯坦对克里普克本质主义的批判的目标)。
What sort of rigidity a designator is endowed with seems to be determined by convention (this, by the way, is exactly the target of Wittgensteinian critiques of Kripke’s essentialism).
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
旁注旨在建立参与者之间的联系,这种联系并不依赖于对需要明确阐述的内容的评估:它们仅仅是连接彼此的介入方式。它们的作用在于表明,作者和读者都参与到同一个游戏中,并能够利用共同的理解。虽然所有写作都需要获得读者的参与,但这种参与在软性领域更为常见,因为与科学领域相比,软性领域的读者更需要被吸引并参与到对话中来。
Asides build a relationship between participants which does not depend on an assessment of what content needs to be made explicit: they are interventions simply to connect. They function to show that both writer and readers are engaged in the same game and are in a position to draw on shared understandings. While all writing needs to solicit reader collusion, this kind of engagement is far more common in the soft fields as readers must be drawn in and involved as participants in a dialogue to a greater extent than in the sciences.
c. 提问 是对话参与的关键策略,它能激发参与,并将对话者引入一个可以引导其理解作者观点的语境(Hyland,2002b)。提问能够激发兴趣,鼓励读者与作者平等地探讨某个问题,分享彼此的好奇心,并跟随论证的走向。然而,语料库中几乎所有的问题都是反问句,它们以疑问句的形式提出观点,使读者看起来像是评判者,但实际上却不期待任何回应。当作者提出问题后立即给出答案时,这种策略最为明显:
c. Questions are a key strategy of dialogic involvement, inviting engagement and bringing the interlocutor into an arena where they can be led to the writer’s viewpoint (Hyland, 2002b). Questions arouse interest and encourage the reader to explore an issue with the writer as an equal, sharing his or her curiosity and following where the argument leads. But almost all questions in the corpus were rhetorical, presenting an opinion as an interrogative so the reader appears to be the judge, but actually expecting no response. This kind of positioning is most obvious when the writer poses a question only to reply immediately:
(11)难道真的需要在后天培养和先天因素之间做出选择吗?我的观点是,并非如此。
(11) Is it, in fact, necessary to choose between nurture and nature? My contention is that it is not.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
有人可能会问,这两个人有什么共同之处?答案是,他们的政治立场相同。
What do these two have in common, one might ask? The answer is that they share the same politics.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
问题大多是仅限于软性领域。我的科学界消息人士认为,他们与读者接触的做法是一种干扰:
Questions were largely confined to the soft fields. The fact that they reach out to readers was seen as a distraction by my science informants:
我觉得在我的领域里,提问其实很少见。你或许能在教科书里找到,但我们通常不用。提问似乎有点冒昧,不是吗?太私人了。我们一般都不想太冒昧。
Questions are quite rare in my field I think. You might find them in textbooks I suppose, but generally we don’t use them. They seem rather intrusive, don’t they? Too personal. We generally prefer not to be too intrusive.
(机械工程面试)
(Mechanical Engineering interview)
我正在论文中寻找结果,并检验其方法是否合理。我关注的是相关性,而那种包装方式无关紧要。人们不会提问,因为会被认为无关紧要,甚至可能带有居高临下的意味。
I am looking for the results in a paper, and to see if the method was sound. I am looking for relevance and that kind of dressing is irrelevant. People don’t ask questions as it would be seen as irrelevant. And condescending probably.
(电子工程面试)
(Electronic Engineering interview)
相比之下,软知识作家则将它们视为与读者建立联系的重要途径:
In contrast the soft-knowledge writers saw them as an important way of relating to readers:
在我的领域,一切都是问题。把主要问题以问题的形式呈现出来,既能清晰地表达我的论点,也能让他们感受到我和他们的想法一致。
In my field that’s all there are, questions. Putting the main issues in the form of questions is a way of presenting my argument clearly and showing them I am on the same wavelength as them.
(哲学访谈)
(Philosophy interview)
我通常会先提出他们可能会提出的问题,以此来构建论点。
Often I structure the argument by putting the problems that they might ask.
(市场营销面试)
(Marketing interview)
d. 指令 指示读者按照作者设定的方式采取行动或看待事物。如第三章所述,指令主要通过祈使句(如consider、note和imagine)、对读者发出义务的情态动词(如must、should、ought)以及表达必要性/重要性判断的表语形容词(理解……很重要)来表示。(Hyland,2002a)。在科学领域,这些书籍通常指导读者如何开展研究过程或在现实世界中采取行动:
d. Directives instruct the reader to perform an action or to see things in a way determined by the writer. As mentioned in Chapter 3, they are signalled mainly by imperatives (like consider, note, and imagine), modals of obligation addressed to the reader (e.g. must, should, ought) and predicative adjectives expressing judgements of necessity/importance (it is important to understand . . .) (Hyland, 2002a). In the sciences these often instruct readers how to carry out research processes or to perform actions in the real world:
(12)在尝试测量界面态密度之前,应该冻结绝缘体中电荷的运动。
(12) Before attempting to measure the density of the interface states, one should freeze the motion of charges in the insulator.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
首先将样品安装在机器的下夹具上,……
Mount the specimen on the lower grip of the machine first, . . .
(生物学)
(Biology)
将滑动幅度设置为30毫米行程距离。
Set the sliding amplitude at 30mm traveling distance.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
然而,指令更常用于引导读者的推理,而且这种引导可能更具威胁性。指令可以通过引导读者理解作者的论点(13)来定位读者,或者通过让读者以某种方式理解某个观点,强调他们在论证中应该关注的内容(14):
More frequently, however, and potentially far more threatening, directives are used to guide readers’ reasoning. They can position readers by leading them through an argument to the writer’s claims (13), or by getting them to understand a point in a certain way, emphasizing what they should attend to in the argument (14):
(13)然后,让我们考虑一个参考场,它在源点处具有刚体旋转 W,*(p) 和刚体位移 w(p)。
(13) Then, let us consider a reference field which has rigid rotation W,*(p) and a rigid displacement w(p) at source point.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
想想看,如果我们最终学会了如何与外星人沟通,那会怎样?
Think about it. What if we eventually learn how to communicate with aliens.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
(14) 值得注意的是,这些结果确实支持这样一种观点……
(14) It is important to note that these results do indeed warrant the view that . . .
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
必须认识到的 是,这些问题……
What has to be recognised is that these issues . . .
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
指令是唯一一种在科学和工程类论文中出现频率更高的论述方式。虽然明确的论述方式主要出现在软学科中(在这些学科中,作者较少依赖既定程序来论证自己的观点),但指令仍然存在风险,软学科领域的受访者也指出,他们对指令的使用非常谨慎:
Directives are the only engagement feature which occur more frequently in papers in the sciences and engineering. Although explicit engagement is mainly a feature of the soft disciplines, where writers rely less on accepted procedures to demonstrate their claims, directives are risky and interviewees in the soft fields noted that they treated them with caution:
我非常注意使用“必须”、“考虑”等词语,并且使用它们是有目的的。我想说的是“好了,到此为止。”这一点很重要,我希望你们注意。所以我想我是在试图掌控读者,让他们接受我的观点。
I am very conscious of using words like ‘must’ and ‘consider’ and so on and use them for a purpose. I want to say ‘Right, stop here. This is important and I want you to take notice of it’. So I suppose I am trying to take control of the reader and getting them to see things my way.
(社会学访谈)
(Sociology interview)
我知道祈使句可能会产生不良影响,所以我倾向于使用比较温和的语气。我不想用论点强加于人,而是希望他们能认真思考我的意思。我会用“考虑一下”和“我们来看看”之类的语气,而不是更强硬的表达。
I am aware of the effect that an imperative can have so I tend to use the more gentle ones. I don’t want to bang them over the head with an argument, I want them to reflect on what I’m saying. I use ‘consider’ and ‘let’s look at this’ rather than something stronger.
(应用语言学面试)
(Applied Linguistics interview)
相比之下,硬知识领域中更为线性、结构严谨的知识建构方式意味着读者通常对相关文献更为熟悉,从而使论证能够更加简洁明了。我的几位科学界人士都表达了这种观点,以下评论对此进行了总结:
In contrast, the more linear and tightly structured approach to knowledge construction in the hard-knowledge fields means that readers are often more familiar with the literature, allowing arguments to be presented more succinctly. This view was expressed by a number of my science informants and is summarized in this comment:
我很少关注表面功夫,我更看重实质内容——研究结果——以及论证是否站得住脚。如果有人想帮我节省时间,那当然没问题。不,我并不担心会被强制性的指令左右。
I rarely give a lot of attention to the dressing, I look for the meat – the findings – and if the argument is sound. If someone wants to save me time in getting there then that is fine. No, I’m not worried about imperatives leading me through it.
(电子工程面试)
(Electronic Engineering interview)
此外,虽然许多科学领域知识的快速增长和高投稿率也使得简洁性备受重视,但在这种情况下,指令提供了一种经济的表达方式,这种方式深受注重篇幅的编辑和信息过载的科学家的青睐,正如另一位受访者所指出的那样:
In addition, while the rapid growth of knowledge and high submission rates in many sciences also places a premium on concision, in such contexts directives provide an economy of expression highly valued by space-conscious editors and information-saturated scientists, as another informant noted:
我非常注重自己的写作方式,如果祈使句能清晰地表达我的想法,我很乐意使用。毕竟,我们常常要遵守字数限制,需要在有限的篇幅内阐述相当复杂的论点。
I’m very conscious of how I write and I am happy to use an imperative if it puts my idea over clearly. Often we are trying to work to word limits anyway, squeezing fairly complex arguments into a tight space.
(机械工程面试)
(Mechanical Engineering interview)
总之,这些不同的特征是把学术论证置于学科共同体互动中的重要方式。它们代表了相对传统的意义建构方式,从而阐明了阐释的语境,展现了作者和读者如何通过文本与各自的学科文化建立联系。
In sum, these different features are important ways of situating academic arguments in the interactions of disciplinary communities. They represent relatively conventional ways of making meaning and so elucidate a context for interpretation, showing how writers and readers make connections, through texts, to their disciplinary cultures.
7.5 跨学科文章中的互动元话语
7.5 Interactive metadiscourse in articles across disciplines
显然,不同学科的作者以不同的方式呈现自身、作品和读者,人文社科领域的作者比科学和工程领域的作者采取更为明确、更具个人色彩的立场。这些差异也延伸到元话语的互动形式中,这一点在考察内指和证据时尤为明显。
It is clear that writers in different disciplines represent themselves, their work and their readers in different ways, with those in the humanities and social sciences taking far more explicitly involved and personal positions than those in the science and engineering fields. These differences also extend into interactive forms of metadiscourse, and this is most obvious when we consider endophorics and evidentials.
i. 内生菌
i. Endophorics
这些元话语技巧旨在引导读者阅读文本中其他位置的解释性或相关材料。它们体现了作者对材料和读者的评估,将论点与读者理解和接受当前论证的假定能力联系起来。在软性领域,这主要意味着通过确保读者能够立即获取文本中其他位置的相关数据或论证来强化论点:
These are metadiscoursal devices that refer the reader to explanatory or related material elsewhere in the text. They represent the writer’s assessment of both the material and the audience, relating the propositions to the reader’s assumed ability to process, and accept, the ongoing argument. In the soft fields this largely means reinforcing an argument by ensuring the reader has immediate access to relevant data or arguments located elsewhere in the text:
(15) 我们将在下一节中看到,未能捕捉到真正的高阶效应和/或交互效应可能会导致与解释回归系数相关的问题,特别是作为重要性权重的问题。
(15) We will see in the next section that failing to capture true higher order and/or interaction effects can lead to problems associated with interpreting regression coefficients, particularly as importance weights.
(营销)
(Marketing)
从我们的实验中可以清楚地看出,问题不在于语法代码的放置,因为正如我们在上一节中看到的,受访者愿意使用额外的列来获取同义词。
What is clear from our experiment is that it is not the placing of the grammatical codes that is causing problems, since as we saw in the previous section, informants were willing to use the extra column to obtain synonyms.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
然而,结构变化这一事实本身并不能预先决定工人的反应模式,因为正如我们在上一节中指出的那样,劳动力调整可以通过多种机制发生。
The mere fact of structural change does not, however, predetermine the pattern of worker response, because, as we noted in the previous section, there are multiple mechanisms by which labor force adjustment can occur.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
然而,内生菌是在自然科学领域,图像和图表是写作的显著特征,其指称对象通常是附近的表格或图表。科学领域通过结合图像和文本来构建语言资源,这些元话语标记的作用在于向读者突出这些联系。写作是在文字和图表表达之间不断切换,因为科学概念通常是符号混合体,融合了语言、数学和视觉元素。Lemke (1998: 105) 和 Kress 与 Van Leeuwen (1996) 强调,科学话语中的视觉元素并非简单地以另一种方式呈现语言信息,而是补充了重要且必要的数据。视觉元素积极地构建意义,并与文本和读者互动,这使得内指在科学论证中至关重要,它表明了作者如何看待文本元素、论证和读者之间的联系。这些联系通常具有明显的修辞意义:
Endophorics, however, are overwhelmingly a feature of writing in the hard disciplines, where the referent is usually a nearby table or graph. Linguistic resources are configured in the sciences by combining images and text, and these metadiscourse markers function to highlight such connections for readers. Writing is a constant switching between written and diagrammatic representation because scientific concepts are typically semiotic hybrids which combine verbal, mathematical and visual elements. Lemke (1998: 105) and Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) stress that visuals in scientific discourse do not simply present verbal information in another way, but add important and necessary data to complement this information. Visuals actively construe meanings and interact with the text and the reader, which makes endophorics central to scientific argument, indicating how the writer sees connections between text elements and the argument and readers. Often these connections are explicitly rhetorical:
(16) 从图 1 可以看出,耦合参数振荡的振幅在反射边界条件下最大,在开放边界条件下最小。
(16) It is evident from Fig. 1 that the largest amplitude of the oscillations in the coupling parameter occurs in the case with reflecting BCs and the smallest for open BCs.
(物理)
(Physics)
从表 2 可以看出,对于辊半径相同的情况,摩擦系数 m 随着压下量的增加而增加。
From Table 2, it is known that for the cases with the same roll radii, the friction factor m increases with increasing reduction.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
从图 3B 和 4B 可以看出,在体内,蛋白质分布于整个细胞核内,但核仁除外。
We see from Figs 3B and 4B that the protein is distributed throughout the entire nucleus except for the nucleoli in vivo.
(生物学)
(Biology)
因此,在严谨的学术领域进行交流,就必须能够自如地运用各种模式的组合,并了解文字文本与定量图表、抽象示意图和信息表格之间的互动方式。将文本材料与图表形式进行元话语式的关联,是科学家们交流的重要途径。
To discourse in the hard fields is therefore to be comfortable with these combinations of modes and with the ways that verbal texts interact with quantitative graphs, abstract diagrams and information tables. The metadiscoursal linking of textual material to diagrammatic forms is therefore an important way that scientists communicate.
二、证据
ii. Evidentials
不同学科之间也存在明显的差异,这体现在作者在论证中对他人作品的依赖程度以及其他方面。他们如何呈现这类研究成果。表 7.3 显示了语料库中 80 篇文章样本的引用分布情况,表明软学科的引用次数更多,工程学和物理学远低于平均水平,尽管生物学与这一总体情况存在显著差异。
There are also clear disciplinary differences both in the extent to which writers rely on the work of others in their arguments and in how they represent such work. Table 7.3 shows the distribution of citations in a sample of 80 articles from the corpus, suggesting that the soft disciplines employ more citations, with Engineering and Physics well below the average, although Biology differs considerably from this general picture.
表 7.3按学科划分的内指词排名(80 篇研究论文)
Table 7.3 Rank order of endophorics by discipline (80 research articles)
平均每篇论文近70次的引用表明,将学术主张置于更广泛的学科框架内至关重要。明确引用先前的文献是文本对语境依赖性的重要体现,也是作者与读者共同构建新知识的关键环节。将论证嵌入参考文献网络不仅体现了恰当的学科取向,也提醒我们,任何论述都必然是对先前论述的回应,并且本身也可供他人进一步阐述。新作必须融入学术共同体的文献体系,才能展现其相关性、重要性以及作者的学术地位。这一点在人文学科中尤为突出,软知识论文的引用量占所有引用量的三分之二。
An average of almost 70 citations per paper indicates the importance of locating academic claims within a wider disciplinary framework. Explicit reference to prior literature is a substantial indication of a text’s dependence on context and thus a vital piece in the collaborative construction of new knowledge between writers and readers. The embedding of arguments in networks of references not only suggests an appropriate disciplinary orientation, but also reminds us that statements are invariably a response to previous statements and are themselves available for further statements by others. New work has to be embedded in the literature of the community to demonstrate its relevance, importance and the credentials of the writer. But this clearly plays a more visible role in the humanities, with two-thirds of all the citations in the soft-knowledge papers.
上文已提及其中一个原因。硬知识在硬领域往往更具累积性,这意味着研究受当前利益驱动,新发现往往源于既有的知识体系(Kuhn,1970)。科学家们从事的研究领域相对独立,研究路径也较为明确,因此他们可以预设一定的理论基础、背景知识、程序性专业知识和技术词汇(Hyland,2000)。这些共同的假设使他们能够使用高度标准化的术语来呈现研究成果(参见Bazerman,1988),因此,尤其是在物理学领域,参考文献往往与特定的研究主题紧密相关。引用是将新论断融入现有知识体系的一种方式,同时借鉴先前的研究成果作为佐证,将新研究置于一套已被认可的事实框架之中。
One reason for this was noted above. The fact that hard knowledge tends to be more cumulative in the hard fields means that research is driven by the imperatives of current interests, so that new findings emerge from an existing state of knowledge (Kuhn, 1970). Scientists participate in relatively discrete areas of study and their research proceeds along well defined paths, so they can presuppose a certain amount of theoretical, background, procedural expertise and technical lexis (Hyland, 2000). Such shared assumptions allow them to present research using a highly standardized code (cf. Bazerman, 1988) and so references, particularly in Physics, tend to be tightly bound to the particular research topic. Citation is a means of integrating new claims into current knowledge while drawing on previous work as supporting testimony, situating new work in a scaffold of accredited facts.
这种可预测性在人文和社会科学领域相对罕见,因为在这些领域,新知识的产生遵循更多迭代和递归的路径,较少依赖于单一的发展路线(Becher,1989)。旧有的领域会被重新探索和诠释,而不是被想当然地接受。更重要的是,文献的解读空间更大,研究成果常常借鉴其他学科,而确立论点的标准也更加模糊。由于不能假定读者具备相同的诠释知识,作者必须通过引用来构建语境。因此,软性文本中更频繁的引用表明,作者更加注重将研究置于学科理解的框架内,为论证提供话语框架,并为论点提供合理的依据。
This kind of predictability is relatively rare in the humanities and social sciences where new knowledge follows more reiterative and recursive routes which are less dependent on a single line of development (Becher, 1989). Old ground is re-crossed and reinterpreted rather than assumed. More importantly, the literature is open to greater interpretation, findings are often borrowed from other disciplines, and criteria for establishing claims are less clear-cut. Because readers cannot be assumed to possess the same interpretive knowledge, writers have to elaborate a context through citation. The more frequent citations in the soft texts therefore suggest greater care in firmly situating research within disciplinary understandings, providing a discursive framework for arguments and demonstrating a plausible basis for claims.
在我研究的软科学领域,作者们也更倾向于强调他们所引用作者的重要性。表7.4显示,人文社科领域的作者们更倾向于将引用的作者直接放在句子中,而不是放在括号或脚注中(这种做法被称为“完整引用”),并且将他们置于主语位置。在自然科学领域,只有生物学符合这一模式。
Writers in the soft fields in my studies were also more likely to highlight the importance they afforded cited authors. Table 7.4 shows that writers in the humanities and social sciences were far more likely to include cited authors in the sentence rather than in parentheses or footnotes (a practice called integral citation), and to place them in subject position. In the hard sciences only Biology conformed to this pattern.
表 7.4引文的表面形式 (%)
Table 7.4 Surface forms of citations (%)
科学中非人格化的惯例有助于解释物理和工程领域文献引用率相对较低以及非整体结构盛行的原因。通过减少对个体行动者的关注,作者强化了这样一种意识形态:硬科学知识的合法性建立在社会不变的标准之上。作者仅仅是“传递信息的信使”。“来自自然的真理”(吉尔伯特,1976:285)。这也解释了为什么科学领域普遍使用脚注格式,用数字代替引用的作者,例如以下示例:
The conventions of impersonality in science help to account for the relatively low incidence of citation in the Physics and Engineering corpus and for the predominance of non-integral structures. By reducing their emphasis on individual actors, writers reinforce the ideology that the legitimacy of hard-science knowledge is built on socially invariant criteria. The author is merely ‘a messenger relaying the truth from nature’ (Gilbert, 1976: 285). This also explains the overwhelming use of the footnote format in the sciences, replacing cited authors with numbers as in these examples:
(17)此外,已有研究表明[103],基本动力学……
(17) Furthermore, it has been shown [103] that the fundamental dynamic . . .
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
正如其他人所观察到的[17],T1被发现是...
As already observed by others [17], T1 was found to be . . .
(物理)
(Physics)
可以说,它已被多位作者彻底分析和总结(2、8、16),并且仍在被其他研究人员从不同的角度重新分析(17)。
. . . suffice to say that it has been thoroughly analysed and summarized by various authors (2, 8, 16), and is still being reanalysed from different points of view by other researchers (17).
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
去除代理人有助于消除人为干预的影响,以及由此可能引入的主观性和扭曲,从而维护建立在复制、证伪和归纳这三个非偶然支柱之上的科学知识的权威性。
Removing the agent helps remove the implication of human intervention and the possible subjectivity and distortions this might introduce, maintaining instead the authority of scientific knowledge as built on non-contingent pillars of replication, falsification and induction.
在完整的句子中,通过将引用的作者置于主语位置,可以更加强调他们的重要性。在这里,硬学科和软学科再次出现分歧,前者倾向于使用被动语态或附加施事结构(例如,根据……)。只有哲学,通常由与其他作者的论点进行对话的叙述构成,始终在引述句中包含引用的作者。哲学是一门作者可见度很高的学科,因为知识是通过与同行的对话构建的,在对话中,长期存在的问题通过个人参与而不断被重新审视。
Within integral sentences, greater emphasis can be given to cited authors by situating them in subject position. Here the hard and soft disciplines diverge once more, with the former favouring passive or adjunct agent structures (e.g. according to . . .). Only Philosophy, which typically consists of narratives that engage the arguments of other writers, consistently included the cited author in the reporting sentence. Philosophy is a discipline with high author visibility as knowledge is constructed through a dialogue with peers in which perennial problems are recycled through personal engagement:
引用可以让你与他人展开辩论,这些问题由来已久,但你希望能够带来一些新的观点。你让对话持续下去,补充一些他们没有考虑到的东西……反正你对大多数问题都比较了解,你们互相阅读。
Citing allows you to debate with others, the questions have been around a long time, but you hope you are bringing something new to it. You are keeping the conversation going, adding something they haven’t considered . . . You know most of them anyway, you read them and they read you.
(哲学访谈)
(Philosophy interview)
哲学家们也使用了更多名词短语和所有格形式,为评估提供了更多机会:
Philosophers also used far more noun phrases and possessive forms, which open up more opportunities for evaluation:
(18)如果我猜对了戈德布拉赫猜想是正确的,……
(18) If I guess correctly that the Goldblach conjecture is true, . . .
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
我们可以从Stalnker 开创性的两阶段理论草图 入手。
We can usefully start with Stalnker’s pioneering sketch of a two stage theory.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
根据戴维森的异常一元论,我们的心理词汇……
. . . according to Davidson’s anomalous monism, our mental vocabulary . . .
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
在科学领域,这些形式主要用作程序的简写,而不是介绍作者作品的手段:
In the sciences these forms largely acted as shorthand references to procedures rather than a means of introducing an author’s work:
(19) 德鲁克稳定性假设在大恢复中……
(19) The Drucker stability postulate in the large regains . . .
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
使用Raleigh-Ritz 方法,即使其关于...保持平稳。
Using the Raleigh-Ritz procedure, i.e. making it stationary with respect to . . .
(物理)
(Physics)
Matthei 方程 [17, 19]首先被用作比例模型的起点……
Matthei’s equations [17, 19] were first used as a starting point in the scale model . . .
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
三、总结
iii. Summary
总之,我们往往发现社会科学和人文学科论文中引用次数更多,且总体上更倾向于使用综合性和主题性引用形式(Hyland,1999c)。这种引用方式并非仅仅是在既有知识基础上延伸知识脉络,而是通过将作者与其他观点联系起来,帮助构建作者自我。人文学科的写作强调个体创造性思维,但始终置于学科知识体系的框架之内。我采访的一位社会学家明确地将此作为引用的原因之一:
In sum, we tend to find more citations and an overall disposition towards integral and subject citation forms in the social science and humanities papers (Hyland, 1999c). Such citation practices are not merely extending the thread of knowledge from a previously established base, but helping to construct an authorial self by positioning the writer in relation to other views. Writing in the humanities stresses the individual creative thinker, but always within the context of a canon of disciplinary knowledge. This was mentioned explicitly as a reason for citing by a sociologist I interviewed:
我已将自己归入某个特定阵营,并倾向于引用该阵营人士的观点。部分原因是我受到了这些思想的影响,部分原因是我希望他们阅读我的作品。这是一种信号,表明我在光谱上的位置,表明我的立场。
I’ve aligned myself with a particular camp and tend to cite people from there. Partly because I’ve been influenced by those ideas and partly because I want them to read my work. It’s a kind of code, showing where I am on the spectrum. Where I stand.
总体而言,科学领域知识的相对快速积累使得简洁的交流成为可能,也促成了看似“有力”的论断,并推动了高度规范化的报告体系的建立,从而使作者能够最大限度地减少自身在文本中的存在感。由于问题背景及其研究方法在很大程度上可以被视为理所当然,因此论断的建立或反驳也相对清晰,这体现在作者对元话语标记的使用上。而在软性学科领域,对于何为充分的解释则缺乏确定性,因此解释上的差异性更大,作者必须更多地依赖于对文本的个人投射,通过标记来唤起读者的智慧和作者的可信度。
Overall, the relatively greater cumulative growth of knowledge in the sciences allows for succinct communication, contributes to apparently ‘strong’ claims, and facilitates a highly formalized reporting system which allows writers to minimize their presence in their texts. The degree to which the background to a problem and the appropriate methods for its investigation can be taken for granted means the ways claims are established or refuted are relatively clear and this is reflected in writers’ deployment of metadiscourse markers. In the soft disciplines, where what counts as adequate explanation is less assured, interpretive variation increases and writers must rely to a greater extent on a personal projection into the text, through markers which invoke an intelligent reader and a credible, collegial writer.
7.6 不同学科教科书中的元话语差异
7.6 Metadiscourse variation in textbooks across disciplines
为了进一步探讨元话语中的学科差异,我想简要提及教科书。与研究论文一样,教科书也是一种社群建构的文体,体现了学科的惯例、价值观和实践,因为作者会运用代表其领域的理论、研究和修辞词汇。即使只是粗略地浏览一下课程教材,也能发现它们之间存在着相当大的异质性,在形式和呈现方式上存在着广泛的学科差异。例如,商业研究教材中常见的彩色图表和精美照片似乎传达了营销规范,而生物学教科书中常见的实验步骤、分类法和电子显微照片则为初学者呈现了一个可知的、客观的世界。
To expand this discussion of disciplinary variation in metadiscourse, I would briefly like to mention textbooks. Like research articles, this is also a community-constructed genre, embodying disciplinary conventions, values and practices as authors draw on the theoretical, research and rhetorical vocabularies which represent their field. Even a glance at course texts reveals their considerable heterogeneity, with wide disciplinary differences in their form and presentation. The coloured diagrams and glossy photographs which characterize Business Studies texts, for example, seem to convey marketing norms, while the experimental procedures, taxonomies and electron micrographs common in Biology textbooks represent a knowable, objective world to novice scientists.
更重要的是,教科书在不同学科中扮演着不同的角色。在硬知识领域,它们体现了真理和当前的专业活动平台。因此,在科学(例如 Love,1993;Myers,1992)和经济学(Hewings,1990;Tadros,1994)中,确定性、抽象的名词化和风格强化了现有的范式。另一方面,在哲学和写作中,教科书通常被认为是推进学术发展和展示原创研究的重要途径(例如 Gebhardt,1993)。
More centrally, textbooks play different roles in different disciplines. In hard-knowledge fields they embody the truths and current platforms of professional activity. So, in the sciences (e.g. Love, 1993; Myers, 1992) and Economics (Hewings, 1990; Tadros, 1994), certitude, abstract nominalizations and style reinforce existing paradigms. In Philosophy and composition, on the other hand, textbooks are often regarded as important vehicles for advancing scholarship and presenting original research (e.g. Gebhardt, 1993).
元话语在这一文体中的重要性体现在,在包含56个教科书章节、总计50万字的语料库中,平均每15个词就出现一次元话语(Hyland,2000)。表7.5显示,教科书作者使用的互动形式远多于互动式形式,过渡词、缓和词和参与标记是总体上最常用的修辞手法。
The significance of metadiscourse in this genre is shown by an average of one instance every 15 words in a corpus of 56 textbook chapters totalling half a million words (Hyland, 2000). Table 7.5 shows that writers used far more interactive than interactional forms in textbooks and that transitions, hedges and engagement markers were the most frequent devices overall.
表7.5学术教科书中每千字的元话语数量
Table 7.5 Metadiscourse in academic textbooks per 1,000 words
不同学科中互动元话语的使用频率再次呈现出相似性,而互动形式在软知识学科中更为常见。哲学家再次成为互动元话语的重度使用者,其使用的数量是其他任何学科的两倍。总体而言,学科差异反映了我们在研究论文中观察到的模式,科学和工程类文本较少关注建立明确的互动语境。
There are, once again, similarities in the frequency of interactive metadiscourse items across the disciplines while interactional forms were more common in the soft-knowledge disciplines. Philosophers were again heavy users of interactional metadiscourse, employing twice as many devices as any other discipline. Broadly, then, disciplinary differences reflect the patterns we have seen in research articles, with the science and engineering texts displaying less concern with establishing an explicit interactional context.
7.7 跨学科教科书中的互动元话语
7.7 Interactional metadiscourse in textbooks across disciplines
由于互动元话语往往是公开论证和说服性文体的特征,因此,它在教科书中占据元话语40%的比例着实令人惊讶。教科书这种文体的目的看似毫无争议,仅仅是将当前公认的知识整理成连贯的形式,以便让普通读者理解,但显然其中蕴含着更深层次的意义。互动元话语模式与研究论文中的分布模式相吻合,这一事实表明,上述不同学科在修辞实践方面存在差异。再次强调,软知识领域展现出更为明确的互动立场,而硬学科则更多地采用基于理论模型和实验结果的论证。
Because interactional metadiscourse tends to be a feature of overtly argumentative and persuasive genres it is surprising to find that it makes up 40 per cent of the metadiscourse in textbooks. This is a genre whose apparently uncontentious purpose is simply to arrange currently accepted knowledge into a coherent form for naive readers, but there is clearly more going on here. The fact that interactional metadiscourse patterns mirrored their distributions in research articles points to the differences in rhetorical practices among the disciplines noted above. Again, the soft-knowledge fields displayed more explicit interactional positions and the hard disciplines employed arguments based more on theoretical models and experimental results.
i. 对冲和助推
i. Hedges and boosters
这些认识论问题在跨学科对确定性的操纵中显而易见。尽管研究领域的新主张有所转变,但这些转变仍然影响着人们对确定性的认识。教科书中对既定真理的论述较少,导致此类文体中保留的限定性措辞也较少。学科分布与研究论文大致相似,软性学科领域包含更多限定性措辞,而强化性措辞则均匀分布于各个学科。因此,尽管教科书作者通常力求将被认为是理所当然的事情呈现为事实,但他们会谨慎地区分绝对真理和不确定事实。这一点在人文社科类教科书中尤为明显,这类教科书在不愿强化论断方面最接近于学术论文。
These epistemological issues are clear in the manipulation of certainty across disciplines. While the shift from new claims in research articles to ascribed truths in textbooks results in fewer hedges in this genre, disciplinary distributions are broadly similar to those of research papers, with the soft fields containing more hedges, and boosters evenly spread among the disciplines. So although textbook writers generally seek to present what is taken for granted as fact, they are careful to distinguish the categorical from the uncertain. This is particularly evident in the humanities and social science books, which most closely approach the articles in their reluctance to upgrade claims:
(20)这或许可以解释切片面包和包装面包中“红霉病”爆发的一些原因。
(20) This probably explains some of the outbreaks of ‘red mould disease’ in sliced and wrapped bread.
(营销)
(Marketing)
克拉申的著作一直受到激烈的抨击,或许是因为在追溯其论断的经验基础时遇到了挫折。
Krashen’s work has been the subject of impassioned attacks, perhaps because of the frustrations involved in tracking down the empirical basis for its claims.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
……这些问题似乎在某种程度上否定了工业国家理论作为现代英国国家活动的基本解释。
. . . these problems might appear to discredit, to a greater or lesser extent, the industrial state approach as an under-arching explanation of state activity in modern Britain.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
然而,与含糊其辞的作者相比,科学领域的作者更倾向于超越模糊不清的界限,直指那些可以确定无疑的结论。除了物理学之外,所有科学教科书都更多地使用了论据,而非文章。这向学生展示了科学的强大论断,以及该学科基于对自身方法的信任和对世界本质的深刻理解而推动知识进步的自信修辞。
Compared to hedges, however, writers in the science fields are more often prepared to move beyond the tenuous and uncertain to what may be safely assured. All the science textbooks but Physics made far greater use of boosters than the articles. This demonstrates to students the strong claims of the sciences and the confident rhetoric of a discipline moving knowledge forward based on faith in its methods and a secure awareness of what the world is like:
(21)这清楚地表明,从普遍祖先开始的最初进化最初是两个方向的,细菌路线与古菌/真核生物路线。
(21) It clearly indicates that initial evolution from the universal ancestor was at first in two directions, the Bacteria versus the Archaea/Eukarya line.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
现在不存在任何歧义;我们将得到这一理想化的明确答案。
There is now no ambiguity; we will get definite answers for this idealization.
(物理)
(Physics)
也就是说,我们将证明,码字中 1 位或 2 位的变化会导致码字变为非码字。
That is, we’ll prove that a 1-bit or 2-bit change in a code word yields a noncode word.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
二、自我提及和态度指标
ii. Self-mention and attitude markers
自信也是表达方式之一。自我提及和态度标记的使用强化了这种论证,而且,不同群体之间再次出现了显著差异。同样,这些差异在软性领域更为明显,哲学和应用语言学领域的作者最常公开地对自己的观点承担个人责任:
Assertiveness is also expressed and strengthened through the use of self-mention and attitude markers, and, once again, there were substantial community differences. Again, these were greater in the soft fields, with writers in Philosophy and Applied Linguistics most often taking overt personal responsibility for their claims:
(22) 我们认为,这种“自我”的概念并不完全适合作为亚洲交流的基础。
(22) We believe that this concept of the ‘self’ is not entirely appropriate as the basis for Asian communication.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
就我而言,我确信任何本体论——也就是说,任何程度的本体论奥秘的领悟——都是不可能实现的……
I am convinced, for my part, that no ontology – that is to say, no apprehension of ontological mystery in whatever degree – is possible . . .
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
我认为, 这些利益使得个人自发性受到外部控制成为合法的。
Those interests, I contend, authorize the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
在这里,我们看到一位自信的专家完全掌控着材料,对该学科关注的问题做出判断和评论。
Here we see a confident expert in full control of the material, making judgements and passing comment on issues of concern to the discipline.
社会科学和人文学科的教科书中也更频繁地出现态度元话语,这些教科书包含的元话语数量更多、范围更广:
Attitudinal metadiscourse was also more frequent in the social science and humanities textbooks, which contained both a larger number and a wider range of devices:
(23)现代工业社会的巨大生产力和富裕 的基础是其惊人的技术信息储备。
(23) The basis of the enormous productivity and affluence of modern industrial societies is their fantastic store of technological information.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
对于这样一个小型经济体来说, 这是一个极其庞大的数字。
This is an incredibly large figure for such a small economy.
(营销)
(Marketing)
知识分子尤其容易彻底改变他们的世界观,而且这种改变发生的频率惊人。
. . . intellectuals especially have been prone to change their world views radically and with amazing frequency.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
三、参与度指标
iii. Engagement markers
这两项都显示出了最重要的意义。与文章相比,教科书中的修辞手法数量是文章的两倍,而且不同学科之间的差异也最大。最有趣的是,不同学科对特定类型的参与标记的偏好,科学领域尤其集中使用指令性词语。正如我们所见,必要性情态动词和祈使句经常引导读者进行特定的思考或行动,而在科学教科书中,这种权威性往往近乎专制:
These showed both the most significant differences with articles, with twice as many devices in the textbooks, and some of the largest disciplinary variations. Most interesting were the preferences for particular kinds of engagement markers, with an overwhelming concentration of directives in the sciences. As we have seen, necessity modals and imperatives frequently direct readers to particular lines of thought or action, and in the science textbooks this kind of authority often borders on the autocratic:
(24)T7 和 T8 展示了一些显而易见的规则。
(24) T7 and T8 show a few rules that should seem obvious.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
你应该鼓励当地的工程分会(……)邀请外部讲师来和你们讨论这些话题。学习如何……非常重要。
You should encourage your local engineering chapters (. . .) to invite outside lecturers to discuss these topics with you. It is important that you learn how to . . .
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
在用虚构力描述物理现象时,务必谨慎。请记住,虚构力只能在非惯性参考系中使用。
You should be careful when using fictitious forces to describe physical phenomena. Remember that fictitious forces are used only in noninertial frames of reference.
(物理)
(Physics)
需要注意的是,在方法 a 和 b 中,我们必须保持一致,使用交流或直流参数。如果像方法 a 那样,您希望测量直流灵敏度,则必须使用直流电压。同样,如果您希望测量交流灵敏度,则必须使用交流电压。
You should note in methods a and b that we must be consistent in working with ac or dc parameters. If, as in method a, you wish to work with dc sensitivity, you must work with dc voltage. Similarly, if you work with ac sensitivity, you must work with ac voltage.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
在软性领域,这种明确的权威性并不常见,取而代之的是,人们试图通过引导学生读者进入一个共享的学科理解世界来吸引他们。使用包容性的“我们”这一表述。这在哲学领域是一种特别常见的策略,旨在缩短参与者之间的距离,强调共同发现和参与。然而,作者的权威始终清晰可见:
In the soft fields such explicit authority is rather less common and instead there is an attempt to engage student readers by drawing them into a shared world of disciplinary understandings through the use of inclusive we. This is a particularly common strategy in Philosophy, where it operates to reduce the distance between participants and to stress shared discovery and participation. The authority of the writer, however, always remains clear:
(25)我怀疑,如果我们仔细观察,就会发现社会之间对于基本道德原则的共识比约定论者通常让我们相信的要多。
(25) I suspect that if we looked carefully enough, we’d discover there’s more agreement among societies about basic moral principles than we’re often led to believe by Conventionalists.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
我们应该能够通过与他们交谈,了解当他们说“我”时,他们的意思是否与我们理解的相同,来判断他们是否有“自我意识”。
We should be able to determine whether there’s a ‘sense of self’ simply by talking to them to find out whether they mean the same thing as we do when they say ‘I’.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
那我们该何去何从呢?我们尚未建立起一套完全合理的道德理论。
Where does that leave us? We have yet to develop a fully plausible theory about morality.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
有趣的是,教科书中许多“我们”的例子不仅仅是将作者和读者联系起来,而是致力于将学生读者构建成学科话语共同体的初级成员:
Interestingly, many cases of we in textbooks do not simply link writers and readers, but work to construct student readers as junior members of the disciplinary discourse community:
(26) 我们称这些模型为数学模型。我们希望通过创建这些模型,能够找到一个能够很好地模拟真实物理系统的模型。
(26) We call these models mathematical models. In creating them it is our hope that we can find one which will simulate the real physical system very well.
(物理)
(Physics)
在任何补码数系统中,我们通常处理的是固定数量的数字,比如 n。
In any complement number system, we normally deal with a fixed number of digits, say n.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
我们目前 对这两种特征的理解都需要细胞结构的形成。
Both of these features as we currently understand them require the development of a cell structure.
(生物学)
(Biology)
由于其隐含的假设认为学生读者的目标、理解和价值观与社群的目标、理解和价值观相符,因此读者被视为该学科实践和修辞中的边缘参与者。
Through their embedded assumptions that the student readers’ goals, understandings and values are compatible with those of the community, the reader is recognized as a peripheral participant in the practices and rhetoric of the discipline.
7.8 跨学科教科书中的互动元话语
7.8 Interactive metadiscourse in textbooks across disciplines
教科书中60%的元话语都是互动式的。显然,作者的首要任务是确保学生读者能够理解论述并理解其意图。互动式元话语有助于作者建立论点之间的联系、文本不同部分之间的联系、当前文本与其他文本之间的联系,以及作者认为读者已知的信息与需要阐明的信息之间的联系。因此,这些形式通过展现话语结构、阐明命题之间的联系和结论,帮助引导初学者的阅读过程。
Sixty per cent of all metadiscourse in the textbooks was interactive. There is a clear priority here for writers to ensure that student readers are able to follow the exposition and recover their intended meanings. Interactive metadiscourse helps writers to make links between arguments, between different parts of the text, between current and other texts, and between what the writer believes the reader knows and what needs to be made clear. These forms therefore help guide the reading processes of novices by indicating discourse organization and spelling out propositional connections and conclusions.
i. 过渡
i. Transitions
这些形式占所有互动形式的三分之二,其功能是通过添加、比较和解释来连接各个过程。正如我之前指出的,我们必须区分连接活动的过渡和连接论证的过渡,元话语仅指后者,即话语组织功能。因此,这些形式在软学科中最常出现也就不足为奇了,因为在这些学科中,阐述更多地依赖于口头论证,而不是展示证据、解读表格和图表或解释定量数据。以下示例体现了这种连接论证内部要素的功能:
These comprised two-thirds of all interactive forms, functioning to connect processes by adding, comparing and explaining them. As I have pointed out, we have to distinguish transitions which connect activities and those which connect arguments, with metadiscourse referring only to this second, discourse-organizing role. It is unsurprising therefore that these forms should occur most frequently in the soft disciplines, where exposition relies more on verbal argumentation than the demonstration of proofs, the unpacking of tables and figures, or the interpretation of quantitative data. This function of linking argument-internal elements can be seen in these examples:
(27) 此外,一旦你了解了快乐和痛苦的区别,难道你不会想要更多地体验快乐,而避免痛苦吗?你的行为由你掌控。然而,请注意,到目前为止,我们只列出了必要特征,而非充分特征。因为我们可以找到反例,比如狗和猫,它们也具有我们所描述的特征。这意味着我们的列表需要更加精确。
(27) Furthermore, once you know the difference between pleasure and pain, don’t you try to get more of the former and none the latter? You control what you do. Notice, however, that so far we have generated only necessary characteristics, not a set of sufficient ones. Because, again, we can find counterexamples like dogs and cats which also have the traits we are describing. And this means that our list needs a good deal more precision.
(哲学)
(Philosophy)
很难讨论“智力”,因为所谓的“智力测试”只能衡量某些特定能力。此外,该测试物品及其所使用的语言都可能受到文化的影响。
It’s hard to discuss ‘intelligence’ because so-called ‘intelligence tests’ measure only certain abilities. Furthermore, the test items as well as the language they’re couched in can be culture bound.
(营销)
(Marketing)
在这里,作者们组织他们的论述,为他们的主张及其后续发展提供依据,并明确指出学生应该从中得出的结论。
Here the writers are organizing their discourses to offer warrants for their claims and what follows from these, clearly marking the conclusions that students should draw from them.
ii. 内生菌
ii. Endophorics
相比之下,内指手法主要出现在科学和工程类文本中,这类文本中85%都使用了内指手法。与研究论文类似,内指手法主要用于连接视觉信息和语言信息,使内容更加清晰,并引导学习者了解科学通常如何运用各种符号系统来表达意义。
In contrast, endophorics are largely a feature of the science and engineering texts, which contained 85 per cent of these devices. As in the research papers, these are overwhelmingly used to signal the to-and-fro between visual and verbal information, acting to make content clearer and inducting learners into the ways that science typically employs a variety of semiotic systems to make meanings.
(28)(有关源阻抗不平衡如何导致差分放大器中 CMRR 下降的详细分析,请参见例 15-3。)
(28) (See Example 15–3 for a detailed examination of how source-impedance unbalance leads to degradation of the CMRR in differential amplifiers.)
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
图 3.8.4 显示了单向重复性,而图 3.8.5 显示了双向重复性的一个可能定义。
Figure 3.8.4 shows the unidirectional repeatability, while Figure 3.8.5 shows a possible definition of bidirectional repeatability.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
表 10.6 是对白瓷坯体烧制过程中可能发生的情况的大致总结。
Table 10.6 is an approximate summary of what probably occurs during the firing of a whiteware body.
(物理)
(Physics)
在教科书中,它们也被用来帮助学习者理解文章内容,这在篇幅较长的教学文本中尤为重要。正如我们在这里看到的,内指对于连接遥远的信息、确保关键信息能够被获取以帮助学习者理解当前内容至关重要:
In textbooks they are also used to help learners navigate the discourse, a particularly important function in long pedagogic texts. As we see here, endophorics are crucial to linking distant information and ensuring that salient information is available to help learners understand current material:
(29) 虽然核糖体RNA的直接测序仍在使用,但更新的方法正逐渐取代这种方法。具体而言,聚合酶链式反应(PCR)技术(参见8.9节)正被用于扩增rRNA基因(DNA片段)。自身)使用与 RRNA 中保守序列互补的合成引物作为 PCR 模板(参见特征序列部分)。
(29) Although direct sequencing of ribosomal RNA is still used, newer methods are beginning to supplant this approach. Specifically, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique (see Section 8.9) is being used to amplify RRNA genes (the DNA itself) using synthetically produced primers complementary to conserved sequences in RRNA as PCR templates (see section on signature sequences).
(生物学)
(Biology)
请注意,在上述步骤中,应力集中系数同时应用于应力的平均分量和交变分量。在第9章中,我们仅将其应用于交变分量,理由是经过一到两个加载循环后屈服即可释放应力。
Note in the above procedure that the stress-concentration factor is applied to both the mean and the alternating components of stress. In Chapter 9 we used it with the latter only, with the argument that yielding in a cycle or two of loading would relieve the stress.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
内指词经常用于为当前主题提供语境,并与框架标记结合使用,以预览内容或标记主题转换:
Frequently endophorics are used to contextualize the current topic, combining with frame markers, to either preview content or mark a topic shift:
(30) 在第二章中,我们讨论了如何使用直流响应式达松瓦尔表头测量直流电流、电压和电阻。本章我们将发现,同样的达松瓦尔表头也可以用来测量交流电流和电压。
(30) In Chapter 2 we discussed the measurement of direct current and voltage, as well as resistance measurements, using the d’Arsonval meter movement which is a dc-responding device. In this chapter we will discover that we can use the same d’Arsonval meter movement to measure alternating current and voltage.
(电子工程)
(Electronic Engineering)
前一节假设作用在细长构件上的荷载和支座力均为集中力或“点力”。另一种常用的理想化假设是连续分布荷载的概念。
In the previous section it was assumed that the load acting on the slender member and the support forces were concentrated or ‘point’ forces. Another idealization which is commonly employed is the concept of a continuously distributed loading.
(机械工业)
(Mechanical Engineering)
软学科的作者通常更喜欢相对独立的论述风格,不会通过这种方式通过链接来建立联系,只有应用语言学家才会经常使用这种策略。
Writers in the soft disciplines generally prefer a relatively more self-contained discursive style that does not seek to affiliate content by signposting links in this way, with only applied linguists using this strategy with any regularity.
三、证据标志
iii. Evidential markers
应用语言学和社会学中证据标记的更广泛使用,为学习者呈现了一种截然不同的修辞方式,一种通过跳出现有文本的框架来支撑论点和新颖性主张。正如第五章所述,证据在教科书中远不如文章中常见,但并非完全被省略。
The greater use of evidential markers in applied linguistics and sociology presents learners with a very different rhetoric, one that supports arguments and claims of novelty by reaching outside the current text. As discussed in Chapter 5, evidentials are far less common in textbooks than articles, but they are not omitted altogether.
尽管在一些学科中,将人类主张作为既定事实呈现占据优先地位,但在社会科学中,证据性论证通过强调明确的互文性,并使学生意识到主张与其提出者密不可分,从而发挥着重要作用。因此,引用先前的文献有助于展现作者的专业知识,并有助于理解在社会科学领域中何为证据:
While the presentation of human claims as established facts takes priority in several disciplines, evidentials play an important role in the social sciences by emphasizing explicit intertextuality and providing students with an awareness that claims are inseparable from their originators. Reference to prior literature thus helps to demonstrate the writer’s expertise and contributes to an understanding of what counts as evidence in the soft fields:
(31) 克拉申(1982)指出,学生在国外居住的时间与完形填空测试成绩相关。
(31) Krashen (1982) points out that students’ length of residence in the foreign country correlates with cloze test scores.
(应用语言学)
(Applied Linguistics)
根据哈里·格雷西的观察,幼儿园在教授纪律和服从权威方面,其要求可能与新兵训练营一样严格。
According to the observations of Harry Gracey, kindergarten can be as demanding as a boot camp in teaching the lessons of regimentation and obedience to authority.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
帕森斯认为,家庭“是生产人类个性的‘工厂’”。
Parsons argues that families ‘are “factories” which produce human personalities’.
(社会学)
(Sociology)
在严谨的学科领域,实验证据和公认的学科真理为论断而非归因提供了支持,这再次表明教科书如何反映了特定社群的论证惯例。事实上,在这一语境中运用元话语是读写能力习得的关键维度,它使学习者感受到自己参与到特定的社群中,并最终引导他们成为此类话语的独立生产者。许多受访者都明确地表达了这一点:
In the hard fields experimental evidence and accepted disciplinary truths provide support for claims rather than attribution, once again showing how textbooks reflect the conventions of community-specific argument. In fact, the use of metadiscourse in this genre is a key dimension of literacy acquisition, giving learners a sense of participating in a particular community and leading them towards eventually becoming independent producers of such discourses. A number of informants made this explicit:
当我为一门课程选择教材时,我不仅是在告诉学生我希望他们掌握哪些学科知识,我还在提供一个优秀写作的范例。例如,如何展开论证、引用其他研究、衔接观点等等。
When I set a textbook for a course I’m not only telling students what knowledge I want them to have of the discipline, I’m providing a model of good writing. How to set out arguments, refer to other studies, link ideas, and so on.
(应用语言学面试)
(Applied Linguistics interview)
内容固然重要,科学必须正确,但科学家如何进行研究以及我们如何谈论研究结果也同样重要。
The content is important of course, the science has to be right, but also how scientists do research and how we talk about it.
(生物学面试)
(Biology interview)
哲学主要关注论证,而非事实。我感兴趣的不是教授事实,而是推理、阐释和清晰论证。阅读材料必须提供这方面的良好例证。
Philosophy is mainly about argument, not facts. I’m not interested in teaching facts, but in reasoning, interpreting, arguing clearly. The readings have to give good examples of that.
(哲学访谈)
(Philosophy interview)
四、总结
iv. Summary
总之,教科书中的元话语它影响着学科为初学者构建知识体系的方式,这体现在内容的教学顺序和互动选择两个方面,而互动选择则展现了学科的视角。这些元话语选项既面向专业人士,也面向学生,并体现了学科社会化和学习的特定观点。通过提出(主要是反问的)问题,并调整问题的确定程度,自信地评估他人的论断,发布指令,提供定义,引导读者对材料进行特定的解读,作者为学习者构建了一个权威且连贯的领域图景。
In sum, metadiscourse in textbooks contributes to the ways disciplines frame knowledge for novices, in terms of both a pedagogic sequencing of content and the interactional choices which reveal a perspective of the discipline. These metadiscourse options thus display an orientation to both professional and student audiences, and to particular views of disciplinary socialization and learning. By asking (mainly rhetorical) questions, varying their degree of certainty, confidently evaluating the assertions of others, issuing directives, providing definitions and leading readers to particular interpretations of material, writers construct an authoritative and coherent picture of their field for learners.
7.9 总结与结论
7.9 Summary and conclusions
在本章中,我试图展示元话语实践如何与学术共同体的社会活动、认知风格和认识论信念密切相关。
In this chapter I have tried to show how metadiscourse practices are closely related to the social activities, cognitive styles and epistemological beliefs of academic communities.
在研究论文中,我们看到元话语对不同学科理解世界和开展学术实践的方式差异非常敏感。自然科学家往往将他们的目标视为生产能够经受住可证伪性检验的公共知识。由于研究通常需要投入大量资金、培训、设备和专业知识,因此往往在特定的地点进行。同样,科学家也倾向于长期致力于特定的研究领域,从而建立起一种……对于该领域的研究人员而言,元话语提供了一个清晰且熟悉的背景。因此,贡献的新颖性和重要性很容易被识别,元话语主要致力于连接语言和视觉信息,并建立清晰的论证思路。相比之下,软知识领域则更倾向于解释性,其话语往往将知识重新定义为一种同情式的理解,通过伦理而非认知的进程来促进读者的接受。因此,元话语展现出更明显的人际色彩,它与读者建立联系,将他们引入话语,并确立对论点的明确立场和态度。
In research articles we have seen that metadiscourse is sensitive to differences in the ways disciplines understand the world and conduct their academic practices. Natural scientists tend to see their goal as producing public knowledge able to withstand the rigours of falsifiability. Because research often occupies considerable investments in money, training, equipment and expertise, it is frequently conducted at specific sites. Similarly scientists tend to be committed to specific research areas for many years, establishing a clear and familiar context for those working in the area. The novelty and significance of contributions can therefore be easily recognized and metadiscourse is largely devoted to linking verbal and visual information and establishing a clear line of argument. The soft-knowledge domains, in contrast, tend to be more interpretive and produce discourses which often recast knowledge as sympathetic understanding, promoting acceptance in readers through an ethical rather than a cognitive progression. Metadiscourse thus exhibits a more explicitly interpersonal colouring, building a relationship with readers, drawing them into the discourse, and establishing a clear stance and attitude to arguments.
教学文本揭示了不同学科在元话语运用、知识态度和教学方法上的相似差异。互动功能在此发挥着重要作用,作者力求在尽可能清晰地传递学科知识的同时,也树立起学科专家的权威性。此外,我们发现教科书的模式反映了其所属社群的话语体系,因此学生能够理解其学科中意义的编码方式。作者在阐述其所理解的学科原则的同时,也引导读者理解该学科的论证形式和读者参与模式。在此过程中,元话语有助于引导初学者形成一系列价值观、意识形态和实践方法,从而使他们能够以机构认可的方式诠释和运用学术知识。
Pedagogic texts reveal similar disciplinary differences in writers’ use of metadiscourse, attitudes to knowledge and approaches to instruction. Here interactive features play a prominent role as writers seek to facilitate the transfer of disciplinary knowledge as clearly as possible while assuming the authority of a disciplinary expert. In addition, we find that textbook patterns represent the discourse of their parent communities, so students will gain an understanding of the ways that meanings are encoded in their disciplines. In laying out what he or she regards as the principles of the discipline, the writer is also acting as a guide to its argument forms and patterns of reader engagement. In this process metadiscourse helps to assist novice readers towards a range of values, ideologies and practices that will enable them to interpret and employ academic knowledge in institutionally approved ways.
在前几章中,我定义、阐述并讨论了元话语的概念,并展示了一系列研究,希望这些研究能够展现元话语对话语分析和理解交际的价值。在此过程中,我隐含地勾勒出一种将元话语作为研究工具的方法论,明确了构成分析基础的各种区分,并阐述了元话语的功能、形式和用途。或许不太明显的是,我还试图说明,对元话语的了解和理解对教师和学生来说具有相当大的价值,能够提供关于语言使用的重要见解,从而带来教学上的益处。在本节的结尾部分,我想更详细地讨论这一方面,概述元话语在教学中的一些实际益处和应用。最后一章提出了一些尚未解决的问题,并展望了该领域未来的研究方向。
In the preceding chapters I have defined, elaborated and discussed the concept of metadiscourse and presented a series of studies which I hope have demonstrated something of its value to discourse analysis and the understanding of communication. In the process I have, implicitly, sketched a methodology for using metadiscourse as a research tool, identifying the kinds of distinctions which form the basis of analyses and elaborating the functions, forms and uses of the concept. Less obviously, perhaps, I have also sought to show how a knowledge and understanding of metadiscourse might be of considerable value to teachers and students, providing important insights into language use that can have pedagogical payoffs. In this closing section I want to discuss this aspect in a little more detail by outlining some of the practical benefits and applications of metadiscourse for teaching. A concluding chapter raises some unresolved issues and points forward to further research in the area.
Metadiscourse in the classroom
在本章中,我想简要探讨前几章的一些教学意义,思考元话语研究能为语言教师带来什么,以及他们如何将其应用于实践。本书通过对元话语的探索、理论检验以及将其应用于真实数据,我一直主张重新评估这一概念,并建议将其更核心地融入到我们的学习、阅读和写作模式中。有效的教与学至关重要地依赖于对语言运作方式的理解,并运用这种理解来帮助学生在各自的社群中进行恰当且有效的沟通。接下来,我将详细阐述元话语如何为此做出贡献。
In this chapter I want to focus briefly on some of the pedagogical implications of earlier chapters to consider what the study of metadiscourse offers language teachers and how they might go about putting it to use. By exploring metadiscourse in this book, testing aspects of the theory and applying it to real data, I have been arguing for a re-evaluation of the concept and suggesting that we might incorporate it more centrally in our models of learning, reading and writing. Effective teaching and learning crucially depend on understanding how language works and using this understanding to help students communicate appropriately and successfully in their communities. Here I will elaborate on how metadiscourse can contribute to this enterprise.
8.1 学生、写作和受众意识
8.1 Students, writing and audience awareness
元话语是交流的核心特征,因为只有当我们正确评估了读者解读文本的资源及其可能的反应时,才能有效地构建论证。元话语的重要性正逐渐在语言教学中得到认可,但直到最近,它还很大程度上被忽视,因为教师们更关注的是内容:说话者和作者如何传达他们的思想。写作尤其被视为一种有限的文本实践,其教学方式要么是模仿专家的写作过程,要么是专注于语法模式,如果正确执行,就能产生成功的文本。
Metadiscourse is a central feature of communication since only when we have correctly assessed both the readers’ resources for interpreting a text and their likely responses to it can we construct our arguments effectively. The significance of metadiscourse is gradually becoming recognized in language teaching, but until recently was largely neglected as teachers focused instead on content: how speakers and writers conveyed their ideas. Academic writing, in particular, was seen as a limited textual practice, taught either through imitating the writing processes of experts or by concentrating on grammatical patterns which, if executed correctly, produced successful texts.
即使在今天,世界各地的许多课堂上,这些观点仍然盛行,人们投入大量精力学习和应用规则,却忽略了修辞功能和人际策略的作用。莫拉宁(Mauranen,1993b:1-2)十年前的评论在很大程度上仍然适用:
Even today, in many classrooms around the world, these views still prevail and a lot of energy is invested in learning and applying rules while ignoring the role of rhetorical functions and interpersonal strategies. Mauranen’s (1993b: 1–2) comments of a decade ago are still largely relevant:
作者们似乎并未意识到这些文本特征及其背后的修辞手法。这种意识的缺乏,部分原因在于传统学校语言教学并未关注文本语言特征。母语教学中偶尔会教授文本策略,但外语教学中却很少(甚至从未)单独教授。因此,这些现象并未引起那些在写作中苦苦挣扎的作者们的注意。
The writers seem not to be aware of these textual features, or the underlying rhetorical practices. This lack of awareness is, in part, due to the fact that textlinguistic features have not been the concern of traditional language teaching in schools. Sometimes text strategies are taught for the mother tongue, but rarely if ever for foreign languages separately. Such phenomena have therefore not been brought to the attention of (writers) struggling with writing.
虽然明确掌握规则会有所帮助,但这只是学习写作的一部分。人们常常忽略的是对修辞手法的理解,而这些手法能够使文本在特定的语境和受众中发挥作用。尤其重要的是,对于新手写作者来说,他们需要对自身相关知识和理解与读者之间的重合程度有一个可靠的认识,这样才能确保所有参与者都能以相同的方式理解文本。
But while an explicit knowledge of rules can help, this is only part of learning to write. What is often missing is an understanding of the rhetorical options that make texts work within and for specific contexts and audiences. In particular, it is important for novice writers to have a reliable idea of how far their relevant knowledge and understandings are likely to overlap with those of their reader so that all participants will make sense of the text in the same way.
以这种方式迁就对话者不仅是沟通的核心,也是学习母语的关键。通过反复与父母和其他成年人进行对话互动,幼儿学会了如何共同讲述经历,与更有知识的人一起重构他们的体验(维果茨基,1978)。通过成年人的提问和回应,孩子会了解故事需要表达得多么清晰,应该包含哪些细节,甚至应该有一个主题,最终学会将读者的需求融入故事中(佩恩特,1986)。因此,孩子有时间和成年人的关注,从共同构建“文本”过渡到独立构建,而这在他们独自学习时是缺失的。在学校写作时,我们会体验到老师的反馈和指导。通过互动,我们学会运用适合特定读者和文体的语言,并发展出回应他人时所需的元话语资源。
Accommodating one’s interlocutor in this way is not only central to communication, but is also crucial to learning to speak a first language. By repeatedly participating in conversational interactions with parents and other adults, small children learn how to recount experiences as a shared endeavour, jointly reconstructing their experiences with a more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978). Through the adult’s questioning and responses, the child learns how explicit a story needs to be, the kinds of details that it should have, and even that it should have a point, and so eventually learns to incorporate the reader’s needs into the story (Painter, 1986). Thus the child has the time and the attention of an adult to move from joint to solitary development of a ‘text’, something which is missing when he or she experiences teacher feedback and conferencing when later coming to write at school. Through interaction then, we learn to produce language appropriate to a particular audience and genre, developing the metadiscourse resources we need in response to others.
遗憾的是,第二语言学习者往往难以在脑海中构建出读者的形象(Silva,1993;Hillocks,1986)。正如第六章讨论的研究表明,英语作为第二语言(ESL)的写作者使用元话语手段的方式与以英语为母语的写作者截然不同。这意味着他们常常无法以自己想要的方式呈现自身或自身的观点,导致他们的写作显得脱离语境、语无伦次,并且不恰当地以读者为中心。学生们通常意识到需要与读者互动,但由于缺乏对可用资源的清晰理解,他们往往只是简单地将口语特征生搬硬套到写作中。然而,对话显然是实时进行的,发言者的轮次有助于调节和组织互动的进程。在书面文本中,只有互动的一方扮演着可见的角色,元话语的功能也截然不同,它的作用在于预测另一位假想互动者的反应。
Unfortunately second language students often have considerable trouble in fleshing out a mental image of their readers (Silva, 1993; Hillocks, 1986). As the research discussed in Chapter 6 suggests, ESL writers tend to use metadiscourse devices very differently to their native English-speaking counterparts. This means that they often fail to represent themselves or their ideas in the ways that they intend and their writing can seem uncontextualized, incoherent and inappropriately reader-focused. Students generally recognize that they need to interact with their readers, but without a clear understanding of available resources, they often simply transfer conversational features to their writing. Conversations, however, obviously operate in real time and speaker turns help regulate and order the unfolding interaction. In written texts only one of the interacting parties plays a visible role and metadiscourse functions very differently, working to anticipate the reactions of the other, imagined interactant.
以下这个例子来自一位香港学生的高中考试作文,它表明将对话中常见的元话语移植到学术写作中可能会显得笨拙和不合适:
This example from a Hong Kong student’s high school exam essay shows how transferring metadiscourse which is common in conversational settings to academic writing can seem awkward and unsuitable:
(1)如果我们在报摊附近走走,很容易就能看到各种封面精美的漫画书。走在街上,你也会看到很多年轻人都在看漫画。毫无疑问,漫画可能是香港青少年最流行的阅读材料。我的很多朋友都在看漫画,我自己每周也会买好几本,比如《龙珠》和《虎鱼》。这种趋势对学生有害吗?会对他们产生不良影响吗?我们无法证明犯罪率和自杀率的上升与暴力和色情漫画的阅读量增加之间存在关联。
(1) If we walk around the news stands, we can easily see different kinds of comics with attractive covers everywhere. You can look around yourself in the streets and you will see many young people are reading comic books. There is no doubt that comic books are probably the most popular form of reading material for youngsters in Hong Kong. Many of my friends read them and I myself buy several every week such as ‘Dragon Ball’ and ‘Tiger Fish’. Is this trend unhealthy for students? Does it lead to bad influences on them? We cannot prove the increase of crime rate and suicide can be linked to increasing reading of violent and pornography comics.
大量使用自我提及、自我吹捧(毫无疑问,很多,很容易看到,将会看到,到处都是),以及互动指标(特别是反问句、包容性的“我们”以及读者代词都暗示着面对面交谈中那种亲切、直接且投入的交流方式。这通常被认为在学术论证中过于随意和口语化(例如,Hinkel,2002),并可能导致学生被扣分。例如,上述节选的作者在香港离校考试中就因为这篇作文获得了D级。
The heavy use of self-mention, boosters (no doubt, many, easily see, will see, everywhere), and engagement markers (particularly rhetorical questions, inclusive we, and reader pronouns) all suggest the personal, direct and involved communication of face-to-face conversation. This is often seen as inappropriately informal and colloquial for academic argument (e.g. Hinkel, 2002), and can mean that students are marked down. The writer of the extract above, for instance, received a D grade for this essay in the Hong Kong school-leaving examination.
这种伪对话式的互动绝不仅限于二语学习者。以下摘录表明,一位教科书作者为了追求引人入胜且非正式的风格,错误地过度使用了与例 (1) 中相同的元话语特征,从而可能给学生读者带来适应问题,也可能令我们其他人感到厌烦:
This kind of pseudo-conversational interaction is by no means restricted to L2 students. The extract below shows how a textbook writer, searching for an engaging and informal style, misguidedly overuses the same metadiscourse features as in (1), and so potentially creates problems of adjustment for the student reader, and maybe irritation for the rest of us:
(2)我们可以思考的最基本的问题之一是:“我是谁?我的独特之处或与众不同之处是什么?”我们该如何回答这个问题?首先,与田野里的石头和路上的沥青不同,我们是活的。但许多其他事物也是活的:植物和树木、病毒和藻类。因此,仅仅活着并不足以回答这个问题。那么,我们能够自主移动,做任何我们想做的事情呢?这使我们区别于石头和灌木,但狗和猫呢?它们难道不能移动和做出选择吗?如果我们说我们具有智慧和能力,并且能够更好地控制自己的行为呢?这更加具体,也排除了所有所谓的“低等动物”。难道就没有其他我们认为人类独有的特征吗?
(2) One of the most basic questions we can ponder is, ‘Who or what am I? What is it that is unique or different about me?’ How do we answer that? For openers, unlike rocks in the field and the tar in the road, we’re alive. But so are lots of other things: plants and trees, viruses and algae. So simply being alive is not enough of an answer. How about the fact that we move under our own power and do whatever we choose to do? That differentiates us from stones and shrubs, but what about dogs and cats? Can’t they move and make choices? What if we say that we’re intel ligent and have more control over our actions? That’s more specific, and it excludes all the so-called ‘lower animals’. Isn’t there something else we can point to that we think is unique about our humanity?
总之,许多作者在调整散文风格以适应不同读者时都会遇到困难(Redd-Boyd 和 Slater,1989)。这通常是因为作者熟悉的语言惯例来自其各自的社区和文化。因此,我们不能指望母语或二语学习者能够从指定的阅读材料或其他课程材料中“自然而然地”掌握合适的元话语用法,因为这些材料往往提供的范例并不恰当。教科书作者在构建学科形象和引导新手理解陌生材料时,其修辞手法与其他学术文体截然不同(Myers,1992;Swales,1993)。EFL 和 EAP(英语作为外语和学术用途)学术写作教材往往同样无益,要么对元话语特征的处理零散敷衍,要么干脆忽略不计。例如,缓和语和加强语的重要性很少在教材中体现(Holmes,1988;Hyland,1994),甚至连过渡语也可能被误解(Milton,1999)。此外,这种对英语作为外语(EFL)教材中元话语的忽视,也可能被那些依赖此类教材作为内部教学材料来源的教师所效仿。
In sum, many writers experience difficulty in adapting their prose for readers (Redd-Boyd and Slater, 1989). This is generally because of the different conventions writers are familiar with from their home communities and cultures. Because of this we cannot expect either L1 or L2 students to just ‘pick up’ suitable metadiscourse usage from their assigned readings or other course materials, for these often provide inappropriate models. Textbook authors’ efforts to both construct a disciplinary image and mediate unfamiliar material for novices involve rhetorical practices very different to other academic genres (Myers, 1992; Swales, 1993). EFL and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) writing textbooks are often equally unhelpful, either treating metadiscourse features in a rather piecemeal and cursory way or ignoring them altogether. The importance of hedges and boosters, for example, is rarely reflected in textbooks (Holmes, 1988; Hyland, 1994), and even transitions can be misrepresented (Milton, 1999). In addition, this neglect of metadiscourse in EFL textbooks may be duplicated by teachers who rely on such texts as sources for their own in-house materials.
因此,元话语很少被明确教授,也很少在写作材料中得到充分涵盖,既无法展现特定选项的系统性影响,也无法揭示话语重要的互动本质。因此,至关重要的是,学生应该接受适当的元话语指导,使用论证模型,让他们能够在目标社群的社会修辞框架内进行写作练习。
As a result, it is rare for metadiscourse to be either explicitly taught or adequately covered in writing materials in a way which either shows the systematic effect of particular options or reveals the important interactive nature of discourse. It seems vital, then, that students should receive appropriate instruction in metadiscourse using models of argument which allow them to practise writing within the socio-rhetorical framework of their target communities.
8.2 教授元话语特征的优势
8.2 Advantages of teaching metadiscourse features
本质上,对元话语的认识能为学生(无论其母语是英语还是英语作为第二语言)带来三大优势。首先,它能帮助学生更好地理解文本对读者的认知要求,以及作者如何帮助读者处理信息。其次,它能为学生提供表达自身观点的资源。第三,它能帮助学生协商这种观点,并与读者进行符合社群规范的对话。更详细地说,在课堂上强调元话语的潜在优势可以概括为以下几点:元话语对文本的潜在贡献包括:
Essentially, an awareness of metadiscourse offers three main advantages to students, whether ESL or first language writers. First, it helps them to better understand the cognitive demands that texts make on readers and the ways writers can assist them to process information. Second, it provides them with the resources to express a stance towards their statements. Third, it allows them to negotiate this stance and engage in a community-appropriate dialogue with readers. Spelling this out a little more, the potential advantages of highlighting metadiscourse in the classroom can be summarized in point form. The possible contributions that metadiscourse can make to a text are that:
1它提供了一个放置命题信息的语境。
1 It provides a context in which to place propositional information.
2它在书面文本中注入了人性,从而使学生更加专注和投入到文本中。
2 It injects a human presence into a written text and so makes students more attentive and engaged with a text.
3它增强了文本的说服力。
3 It increases the persuasiveness of a text.
4它有助于理解和回忆文本内容。
4 It aids comprehension and recall of text content.
5 It assists coherence and relates issues clearly to each other.
6它通过一位真正的作家,帮助调和现实世界和学校世界。
6 It helps mediate the real world and the school world through a real writer.
7它凸显了作者的不确定性,并让读者意识到真理的主观解释。
7 It highlights writer uncertainties and makes readers aware of the subjective interpretation of truth.
8这有助于表明作者对文本中命题信息的立场。
8 It helps show the author’s position on the propositional information in a text.
9它表明了作者对文本读者的态度,包括亲密程度、相对权力、地位等。
9 It indicates the writer’s attitude to the reader of the text, including intimacy, relative power, status, etc.
10它通过突出重点、指示方向、预测结构、连接章节和思想等方式减轻读者的处理负担。
10 It relieves the reader’s processing load by highlighting important points, indicating direction, anticipating structure, linking sections and ideas, etc.
11这向读者表明,作者认识到他们的需求,并试图与他们展开对话。
11 It shows readers that the writer recognizes their needs and is seeking to engage them in a dialogue.
12这揭示了作者对社群互动惯例的认识。
12 It reveals the writer’s awareness of the interactional conventions of a community.
这些论断的证据并不容易找到,但一些研究表明,恰当运用元话语可以提升阅读和写作能力。例如,Crismore 和 Vande Kopple (1988) 发现,学生从包含缓和语的文本中学到的东西比从省略缓和语的文本中学到的东西更多;而 Barton (1993) 则观察到,经验更丰富、写作更成功的学生更多地使用对比并列过渡词。Intaraprawat 和 Steffensen (1995) 发现,元话语的使用与学生写作质量之间存在很强的相关性。他们对十二名英语作为第二语言 (ESL) 学生限时写作的作文进行研究,发现高分作文中包含的元话语比例更高,且元话语特征更加多样化。例如,被评为“优秀”的作文中缓和语、态度标记和证据性词语(用我的术语来说)的比例几乎是低分作文的两倍,而注释和强化词的比例更是高出两倍以上。作者认为,这些差异揭示了优秀作家对读者的更高意识,以及他们对文本对读者提出的认知要求的更高认识,同时也揭示了他们更有能力客观地看待自己的文本并以各种方式进行评论。
Evidence for these assertions is less easy to come by, but some studies have suggested that both reading and writing are enhanced through appropriate use of metadiscourse. Crismore and Vande Kopple (1988), for instance, found that students learnt more from texts which included hedges than from texts in which they were omitted, while Barton (1993) observed that more experienced and successful writers made greater use of contrast conjunct transitions. Intaraprawat and Steffensen (1995) discovered a strong correlation between the use of metadiscourse and the quality of student writing. In timed essays written by twelve ESL students they found that the higher graded essays contained proportionally more metadiscourse and a greater variety of features than the poor essays. Essays marked as ‘good’, for example, contained almost twice the proportion of hedges, attitude markers and evidentials (using my terms) than the weaker essays, and more than double the proportion of code glosses and boosters. The authors argue that these differences reveal the good writers’ greater awareness of audience, and the cognitive demands the texts made on readers, as well as their greater ability to see their texts objectively and comment on them in various ways.
元话语研究通常具有教学导向,研究者们竭力指出他们的发现可能对非英语母语者有所帮助。然而,鲜有研究探究通过明确的元话语教学是否真的能够提高写作水平。Cheng 和 Steffensen (1996) 的研究是一个例外。该研究发现,实验组在接受了为期 16 周的元话语功能和用法教学后,课堂作文的成绩显著提高。与仅接受传统过程写作教学的对照组相比,实验组更多地使用了元话语,并且更熟练地运用了元话语标记。这表明,教授学生使用元话语是提高写作技能的重要因素。
Metadiscourse research often has a pedagogical orientation, with writers at pains to point out that their findings may be useful to non-native speakers of English. Few studies, however, have sought to discover whether writing actually improves as a result of explicit instruction in metadiscourse. One exception is Cheng and Steffensen’s (1996) study which discovered that an experimental group received significantly higher grades in their in-class essays after being taught the function and use of metadiscourse for 16 weeks. This experimental group used more metadiscourse and used the markers more skilfully than a control group which had received only conventional process writing instruction, suggesting that teaching students to use metadiscourse was an important factor in improving writing skills.
Shaw 和 Liu (1998) 的研究也发现,经过两个月的学术英语 (EAP) 教学(其中包括关键的元话语特征),学生的作文水平有了显著提高。他们研究了来自 17 种不同母语背景的 164 名外语学习者,发现他们分析的文本表明,学生对文体规范和受众的意识日益增强,并将这种变化描述为从口语风格向书面风格的转变。就元话语要素的习得而言,这意味着过渡词和参与标记的使用增加(正如你所看到的,我们可以注意到这一点),态度标记和强化词的使用略有增加,以及自我提及的减少。表 8.1 总结了其中的一些变化。研究人员认为,元话语的增加“是适度的,并非不加区分”,而且似乎是对“学术界对明确性的要求”的回应。
Shaw and Liu (1998) also found substantial improvements in students’ essay writing after two months of EAP instruction which included key metadiscourse features. Studying 164 foreign language students from 17 different first language backgrounds, Shaw and Liu observed that the texts they analysed evidenced an increasing awareness of genre expectations and audience, characterizing the changes as a move from a spoken to a written style. In terms of the acquisition of metadiscourse items, this meant an increased use of transitions and engagement markers (as you can see, we can note that), small increases in attitude markers and boosters, and a reduction in self-mention. Table 8.1 summarizes some of these changes. According to the researchers, the increase in metadiscourse ‘was moderate and not undiscriminating’, and seemed to respond ‘to the academic demand for explicitness’.
徐(2001)在一项针对中国某大学四年制本科英语课程中200名学生的元话语使用研究中发现了类似的变化。总体而言,他发现后两年的学生比前两年的学生更倾向于使用形式更复杂、更精确的互动式元话语(例如consequently、therefore、as a result),而前两年的学生则更倾向于使用but、then和and等形式。此外,他们使用的态度标记、自我提及和“有效性标记”(缓和语和加强语)也更少。这些变化的原因很复杂,但徐认为这是由于随着学生对英语学术规范的认识不断加深,中国传统写作标准的影响力逐渐减弱所致。
Xu (2001) found similar changes in a study of metadiscourse use by 200 students across four years of an undergraduate course in English at a Chinese university. Broadly, he found that students in the final two years employed more formally complex and precise interactive metadiscourse (consequently, therefore, as a result) than those in the first two years, who preferred forms such as but, then and and. In addition, they used fewer attitude markers, less self-mention and fewer ‘validity markers’ (hedges and boosters). The reasons for these changes are complex, but Xu attributes them to the weakening intrusion of Chinese criteria of good writing as the students gained greater awareness of English academic norms.
表 8.1经过 2 个月的指导后元话语使用情况的变化(Shaw 和 Liu,1998)
Table 8.1 Changes in metadiscourse use after 2 months’ instruction (Shaw and Liu, 1998)
8.3 一些教学原则
8.3 Some teaching principles
教导学生有效运用元话语,本质上意味着帮助他们培养受众意识,并赋予他们与受众进行恰当互动的能力。读者期望文本以特定的方式组织,写作中能够充分体现作者的意图,并且他们的观点能够得到认可。许多学生难以将写作视为一种“互动”,因此他们往往从面对面交流中更为直观的互动模式中汲取灵感。正因如此,向学生明确介绍元话语的概念并探讨其对写作者的作用就显得尤为重要。例如,Cheng和Steffensen(1996)的研究让学生阅读并运用有关元话语的文章,这可能有助于提升他们的写作水平。
Teaching students to use metadiscourse effectively essentially means helping them to develop a sense of audience and equipping them with the means to engage with that audience appropriately. Readers expect that texts will be organized in certain ways, that sufficient signals of the writer’s intentions will be available in the writing, and that their own views will be acknowledged. The fact that many students find it hard to see writing as ‘interactive’ and so take their models from the more obvious to-and-fro of face-to-face encounters means there is considerable value in explicitly introducing the concept of metadiscourse to students and discussing the functions it performs for writers. Cheng and Steffensen’s (1996) research, for instance, involved students reading and working with articles about metadiscourse and this may have contributed to improvements in their writing.
以这种方式明确旨在提高学生修辞意识的教学通常被称为修辞意识提升(例如,Swales,1990:213)。这包括一些任务,旨在使学生对特定文体和社群中反复出现的修辞效果和特征保持敏感。这种方法更注重于产出。与其说是提高写作水平,不如说是提高文本质量,因此它强调的是能够超越当前课程的通用技能和策略。提高学生语言元认知能力的一种有效方法是让学生进行自己的话语分析。这鼓励他们对自身社群的修辞实践产生好奇心,并培养探索文本的态度。在元话语教学方面,前几章的讨论表明,教师需要考虑以下关键要素:
Instruction which is explicitly directed to student awareness in this way is generally referred to as rhetorical consciousness raising (e.g. Swales, 1990: 213). This involves tasks which sensitize students to the rhetorical effects and features that tend to recur in particular genres and communities. This approach is more concerned with producing better writers than with producing better texts, so it emphasizes skills and strategies that will generalize beyond a current course. One activity that increases students’ linguistic meta-cognition in this way is asking students to engage in their own discourse analysis. This encourages them to develop a curiosity about the rhetorical practices of their communities and an exploratory attitude towards texts. In the case of metadiscourse instruction, the discussion in previous chapters suggests that teachers need to consider the following key elements:
1.作者的目标需求;
1 the writer’s target needs;
2作者先前的写作和学习经验;
2 the writer’s prior writing and learning experiences;
3语言在表达功能中的作用;
3 the role of language in expressing functions;
4.社会互动的重要性;
4 the importance of social interactions;
5.使用真实文本;
5 the use of authentic texts;
6观众和社区实践的作用。
6 the role of audience and community practices.
一、考虑作者的目标需求
i. Consider the writer’s target needs
如果写作是一种文化活动,反映了写作者在与社群其他成员互动时所达成的社会认可的目标,那么我们必须从以下问题入手:“这些学生为什么要学习写作?”、“他们将与谁互动?”、“写作的目的是什么?”然而,需求并非总是易于确定,教师培训手册往往对这一过程赋予了误导性的客观性。我们很容易忽视不同利益相关者(学校管理者、政府部门、家长、雇主、教师、学习者)需求之间潜在的冲突,也容易忽略为了进入享有盛誉的学术或专业社群而可能需要做出的个人和政治妥协(Benesch,2001)。然而,元话语的使用因文化、社群和文体而异,这意味着我们应该尽可能地识别学习者在其目标情境中需要进行的写作类型,并将这些写作融入到我们的课程中。这包括仔细研究目标群体的目标、关系和修辞互动,并为学生提供机会去探索作者通常在相关体裁中使用元话语的方式。
If writing is a cultural activity, reflecting the writer’s socially recognized goals while interacting with other members of a community, then we have to start with the questions ‘Why are these students learning to write?’, ‘Who will they be interacting with?’, ‘For what purposes?’ Needs are not always easy to determine, however, and teacher training manuals often give a misleading objectivity to the process. It is easy to overlook the potential conflicts between the needs of different stakeholders (school administrators, government departments, parents, employers, teachers, learners) and to neglect the personal and political compromises that may be necessary to gain access to prestigious academic or professional communities (Benesch, 2001). However, the fact that metadiscourse use varies across cultures, communities and genres means that we should, as far as possible, identify the kinds of writing that learners will need to do in their target situations and bring these into our courses. This involves careful study of the goals, relationships and rhetorical interactions of target groups and means providing students with opportunities to explore the ways writers typically use metadiscourse in relevant genres.
二、考虑作者以往的写作和学习经验
ii. Consider the writer’s prior writing and learning experiences
将写作视为一种文化活动,不仅意味着我们应该认识到写作发生的各种语境,还意味着我们应该意识到学生带入课堂的不同文化背景的写作和学习经验。仅仅设定大学或职场对学生的期望,然后给他们提供我们希望他们创作的范例是不够的。来自不同背景的学生会根据他们先前的教育、文化或社会经验,对写作中恰当的互动和参与方式有自己的理解。教师在布置作业时必须注意这些差异,以便学生避免做出读者不认同的修辞选择。这意味着我们必须承认存在多种写作实践的可能性,并思考如何通过提供清晰的范例、相关的主题、恰当的写作策略和有效的反馈来激发学生的写作兴趣,从而使写作任务变得易于完成。这也意味着,我们可以通过帮助学生理解元话语在不同语境中的差异,引导他们运用自身对不同文体和社群的经验来解读和创作文本。
To see writing as a cultural activity not only means that we should recognize the different contexts in which writing occurs, but also that we should be aware of the different culturally grou nded writing and learning experiences that students bring to the classroom. It is not enough to establish what will be expected of students in the university or workplace and then give them models of what we want them to produce. Students from different backgrounds will have their own ideas of what appropriate interactions and engagement are in writing based on their prior educational, cultural or social experiences. Teachers have to take care to recognize these in the tasks they assign so students can avoid making choices which reflect rhetorical conventions not shared by their readers. This means that we must acknowledge the possibility of alternative practices and consider ways of engaging writers by providing clear models, relevant topics, appropriate writing strategies and relevant feedback to make writing tasks manageable. It also suggests that we might assist students, through an understanding of the ways metadiscourse varies in different contexts, to draw on their own experiences of genres and communities to interpret and produce texts.
三、将学习写作视为学习使用语言
iii. View learning to write as learning to use language
一些写作教学方法强调个人自我表达,而忽视语言的重要性,但关注元话语则能鼓励学生认识到目标语言是一种资源,他们可以利用这种资源来构建意义。教师应鼓励学生理解,与读者进行有效互动需要根据特定目的和受众选择恰当的语法和词汇。关注元话语特征的功能意味着,培养语法意识必须融入文本和语境的探索中,而不是作为写作的一个独立组成部分进行教授。这使得写作者能够运用相关的知识。通过分析文本结构和语境,学生能够预测他们可能需要的语言,这是孤立学习语言形式所无法实现的。此外,在学习如何在写作中使用语言的过程中,学生不仅开始理解如何创造意义和诠释现实,还能理解语言本身的运作方式,并掌握可以用来讨论语言及其在文本中作用的词汇。
Some approaches to writing instruction emphasize individual self-expression and downplay the importance of language, but focusing on metadiscourse encourages students to see that the target language is a resource they can use to make meanings when they write. Teachers should encourage students to see that effective interaction with readers involves making appropriate grammar and vocabulary choices for particular purposes and audiences. Focusing on the functions of metadiscourse features means that developing an awareness of grammar has to be integrated into the exploration of texts and contexts rather than taught as a discrete component of writing. This allows writers to draw on relevant knowledge about text structure and context to predict the language they are likely to need in a way that learning isolated forms can never do. Moreover, in learning how to use language in their writing, students not only begin to understand how to create meanings and interpret reality, they also develop an understanding of how language itself works, acquiring a vocabulary they can use to talk about language and its role in texts.
四、强调社交互动
iv. Highlight social interactions
元话语是指我们通过与他人互动来协商材料的方式。因此,教授学生有效运用元话语强调此类互动的重要性,以及如何运用各种技巧以独白的形式构建对话。这不仅意味着教师应该关注功能而非形式,还意味着他们应该强调写作课程中经常被忽视的关键问题,例如自我呈现、礼貌、自信、缓和、引用共享知识、胁迫、立场、地位以及读者的“定位”。作者的写作目的和特定语境下的文体限制固然重要,但作者对自身与读者之间关系的感知,例如社会距离、权力差异以及对读者施加的约束程度,也同样重要。通过参与各种相关的写作实践,这些实践涵盖不同的写作目的和读者群体,学生可以了解文本如何与特定的语境和语言运用方式相关联。
Metadiscourse is the way we negotiate material through interactions with others. Teaching students to use metadiscourse effectively therefore stresses the importance of such interactions, and how devices can be used to construct a dialogue in a monologic format. This not only means that teachers should focus on functions rather than forms, but also that they should emphasize key issues which are often neglected in writing courses, such as self-presentation, politeness, assertiveness, mitigation, reference to shared knowledge, coercion, stance, status and the ‘positioning’ of readers. The constraints of both the writer’s purpose and the genre in a particular context will be important here, but so will the writer’s sense of his or her personal relationship with readers in terms of social distance, power differences and the scale of the imposition being made on the reader. By engaging in a variety of relevant writing experiences which draw on different purposes and readers, students can see how texts relate to particular contexts and ways of using language.
五、根据真实文本创建任务
v. Create tasks based on authentic texts
认真对待学生的交际需求意味着,所教授的元话语手段的选择应基于目标语言的语料库。使用真实的语言样本意味着学生能够接触到最有用、最有效和最常用的语言工具,从而使其功能显而易见。然而,同样重要的是,要将语言特征置于语境中,使语法服从于关键文体的修辞特征。因此,他们所使用的文本既应与学生相关,又应代表他们将来在目标语言中需要写作的文体。文本应基于真实语境创作,而非课堂教学。为学生改写文本往往会导致文本的连贯性和衔接性下降,强调某些元素而扭曲其他元素,同时也可能使学生从中学习到的大部分内容丢失。元话语技巧通常协同作用,传递关于作者、他们与读者以及文本创作所在社群文化的信息,而这些信息在模拟文本中往往会丢失。
Taking students’ communicative needs seriously means that the selection of metadiscourse devices to be taught should be based on the target language repertoire. Using authentic samples of language means that students are exposed to the most useful, productive and frequent items so that their functions become apparent. Equally, however, it means that features are contextualized so that grammar is subordinated to the rhetorical features of key genres. The texts they work with should therefore be both relevant to the students, representing the genres they will have to write in their target contexts, and authentic, created to be used in real-world contexts rather than in classrooms. Rewriting texts for students often involves a loss of cohesion and coherence, distorting some elements by emphasizing others, but it can also mean that the texts lose much of what students need to learn from them. Metadiscourse devices typically work together to convey information about those who write them, their relationship to their audience and the culture of the community in which they are written, and much of this can be lost with simulated texts.
六、调查社区实践
vi. Investigate community practices
由于元话语将读者置于写作的核心,因此学生不仅要参与文本特征的研究,更要参与交际事件的分析。通过观察目标语境中的活动并与参与者讨论,学生可以更清晰地了解这些语境中发生的事情、参与者、他们扮演的角色以及互动对他们的意义。本质上,学生受益于将各种元话语特征视为有目的的而非任意的、情境化的而非独立的、互动性的而非文体修饰。
Because metadiscourse places a consideration of the reader at the centre of writing, it is important that students should be involved in the analysis of communicative events as much as they are in the investigation of textual features. By observing activities that occur in the target context and by discussing these with participants, it is possible for students to see more clearly what happens in those contexts, who is involved, the roles they play, and the meanings interactions have for them. Essentially, students benefit from learning to view the various metadiscourse features as purposeful rather than arbitrary, as situated rather than autonomous, and as interactive rather than as stylistic flourishes.
这种目标情境研究方法包括观察、访谈和参与者反思,旨在了解文本在特定情境中的产生和使用方式、文本的使用者以及文本与其他文本和目的之间的联系。这有助于学生理解写作如何融入真实情境,以及元话语在语言运用中的作用。此外,这种方法也鼓励学习者将文本置于其完整的文化语境中进行理解。
This kind of target situation research involves methods of observation, interview and participant reflection to understand how texts are produced and used in a particular situation, who uses them and how they are linked with other texts and purposes. This encourages students to see how writing is embedded in real-world situations and the role of metadiscourse in getting things done with language. Encouraging learners to locate texts in their full cultural context in this way also:
• 通过展示写作对用户的影响,帮助学生理解元话语;
• assists students to understand metadiscourse by showing how writing has consequences for users;
• 帮助学生了解元话语在人们相互互动以及构建语境和身份认同中所起的作用;
• helps students to see the role metadiscourse plays in the ways people interact with each other and in constructing contexts and identities;
• 培养对文本在使用语境中与其他文本相互关系的理解;
• develops an appreciation of the ways texts are related to other texts in contexts of use;
• 鼓励学生批判性地参与到他们以后可能参与的情境中,并帮助他们了解文本是如何受到意识形态和价值观的影响的;
• encourages critical engagement with the situations students may later participate in and helps them to see how texts are underpinned by ideologies and values;
• 为学习者提供调查和质疑交流事件的手段。
• provides learners with a means for investigating and questioning communicative events.
8.4 一些教学策略
8.4 Some teaching strategies
修辞意识的提升在于培养创造性思维能力,而非墨守成规;在于运用形式,而非墨守成规。这需要将语境因素融入教学,强调学生对目标文体中反复出现且实用的模式的自觉意识,以及反思其背后动机的必要性。教师可以通过三个主要步骤来突出元话语,帮助学生更有效地与读者互动。首先,需要让学生了解优秀作家常用的互动策略;其次,提供机会让学生练习运用这些策略;最后,布置写作任务,要求学生将恰当的修辞形式融入到自己的作品中。
Rhetorical consciousness-raising involves developing a generative capacity rather than an adherence to rules, an exploitation of forms not a compliance to them. This requires finding ways of incorporating contextual factors into teaching to emphasize a conscious awareness of recurrent and useful patterns in target genres and the need to reflect on the motives behind their use. There are three main steps that teachers can use to highlight metadiscourse and help students interact more effectively with their readers. First expert writers’ interactive strategies need to be made salient to students, then opportunities given for students to practice their use, and finally writing tasks provided which ask students to weave appropriate forms into their own work.
一、文本分析
i. Analysing texts
让学生熟悉元话语可以从不需要产出但能引起他们注意如何在相关语境中使用语言进行互动的任务开始。
Familiarizing students with metadiscourse can begin with tasks which require no production but which draw attention to how language is used in relevant contexts for interactional purposes.
突出特定特征的一种方法是使用语料库检索程序在真实文本中搜索相关示例。语料库检索结果为那些着重关注目标文体中广泛使用的元话语形式的材料提供了真实数据。例如,这些材料可以鼓励学生利用上下文线索完成填空式语料库检索表。如果学生还能分析课程教材中元话语的使用情况,这种方法尤其有效,因为他们不太可能……不熟悉的内容可能会分散学生的注意力。另一方面,文本语料库允许采用演绎法,鼓励学生自行使用语料库检索工具在文本中搜索元话语特征,并得出关于这些特征用法的结论。例如,学生可以将他们的研究结果与本书中描述的一些研究进行比较,这可能会很有意思。这种“数据驱动学习”(Johns 和 King,1991)是激发探究精神和鼓励学生独立学习语言的重要途径。
One way of highlighting particular features is to search for relevant examples in real texts using a concordancing program. Concordanced output provides authentic data for materials that concentrate attention on metadiscourse forms widely used in target genres. These materials, for example, can encourage students to complete gapped concordance printouts using contextual clues. This approach is especially useful if students can also analyse the use of metadiscourse in their course books, since they are less likely to be distracted by unfamiliar content. Alternatively, text corpora allow a deductive approach, encouraging students to use a concordancer themselves to search texts for metadiscourse features and draw conclusions about their use. It might be interesting, for example, for students to compare their results with some of the studies described in this book. Such ‘data-driven learning’ (Johns and King, 1991) is an important means of stimulating inquiry and encouraging independent engagement with the language.
培养学生理解元话语功能的另一种方法是通过分析文本片段。学生可以通过以下任务来探索特定元话语元素的互动和交互作用:
Another way to encourage an appreciation of how metadiscourse functions is through the examination of text fragments. Here students can explore the interactional and interactive effects of particular metadiscourse items through tasks such as the following:
• 扫描文本,识别其人际关系基调和所表达的关系类型,然后寻找实现这些关系的要素;
• scanning a text to identify its interpersonal tenor and the kinds of relationships that are being expressed, then searching for the items through which these relationships are realized;
• 比较两篇主题相似但面向不同读者群体的文本(例如教科书和研究论文),并讨论文本选择如何满足每个读者群体的需求;
• comparing two texts on a similar topic written for different audiences (e.g. a textbook and a research paper) and discussing how each audience is accommodated by textual choices;
• 分析一份小报和一份严肃报纸上的新闻报道,确定每种情况下使用了哪些功能使报道“以读者为中心”或“便于读者阅读”;
• examining a news item from a tabloid and a broadsheet newspaper to determine what features are being used in each case to make the item ‘reader-oriented’ or ‘reader-friendly’;
• 识别文本中所有互动元话语的例子,圈出所使用的形式,并赋予它们意义;
• identifying all examples of interactive metadiscourse in a text, circling the forms used, and assigning a meaning to them;
• 区分文本中陈述事实的语句和未经证实的语句;
• distinguishing statements in a text which report facts and those which are unproven;
• 找出文本中的所有过渡词,将其分类为补充(例如,“而且”、“此外”)、比较(例如,“同样地”、“另一方面”)或结果(例如,“因此”、“然而”),并观察哪些类别和形式最为常见。将这些与另一文本进行比较,以得出关于论证类型或受众预期方面的结论;
• locating all transitions in a text, classifying them as either addition (and, furthermore), comparison (similarly, on the other hand) or consequence (therefore, nevertheless) and seeing which categories and forms are most common. Comparing these with another text to draw conclusions about the type of argument or audience expectations;
• 区分文本中作者以个人观点陈述的语句和归因于其他来源的语句;
• distinguishing statements in a text where the author asserts a statement as a personal view and those attributed to another source;
• 识别文本中的所有缓和语、加强语或态度标记,说明它们在每种情况下指的是什么,并判断是否采取了一致的立场;
• identifying all hedges, boosters or attitude markers in a text, stating what they are referring to in each case and deciding if there is a consistent position being taken;
• 选择一个特征,并比较其在两种语言的小型语料库(或单个文本)中的使用情况;
• selecting a feature and comparing its use in a small corpus (or single text) in two languages;
• 检查对文本的重新表述,这些表述改变了上述互动要素,即地位、社会距离和强加的力度。
• examining reformulations of a text which vary the components of interaction noted above, i.e. status, social distance and weight of imposition.
最后,学生可以通过提出一系列问题来分析整篇文本。这既能鼓励学生注意到元话语,又能帮助他们发现文本之外可能影响其写作方式的特征。图 8.1 中的问题(由 Paltridge (2001) 提出)为这类活动提供了一个有用的起点。
Finally, students can analyse a whole text by asking a number of questions about it. This both encourages students to notice metadiscourse items and helps them to uncover features outside the text which may have influenced the ways it was written. The questions in Figure 8.1, suggested by Paltridge (2001), provide a useful starting point for this kind of activity.
图 8.1 分析文本时的一些初始背景问题(Paltridge,2001:51)
FIGURE 8.1 Some initial contextual questions when examining a text (Paltridge, 2001: 51)
虽然在没有更详细的信息的情况下,可能很难对其中一些问题得到明确的答案,但这对于研究某种体裁所带来的一些人际交往机会和限制来说是一个很好的方向。
While it may be difficult to get clear answers to some of these questions without more detailed information, this is a good orientation to studying some of the interpersonal opportunities and constraints that a genre makes possible.
二、篡改文本
ii. Manipulating texts
当学生能够识别元话语的例子及其所扮演的角色时,他们就可以着手研究这些特征,通过修改文本来表达不同的含义。优秀的范文可以为控制性写作任务奠定基础,通过提供文本框架,帮助学生完成平行文本、修改草稿或以其他方式修改范例,使其包含恰当的元话语特征,从而培养学生的自信心和流畅度。这类有针对性的任务为学生提供了大量的辅助机会,让他们能够了解元话语的修辞效果,并运用这些修辞手法来实现不同的目的(Hyland,2003)。
When students are able to identify examples of metadiscourse and the roles they are performing, then they can work on these features, changing and altering texts to achieve different meanings. Good examples of target texts can provide a foundation for controlled composition tasks, developing learners’ confidence and fluency by providing a text frame from which learners can complete a parallel text, edit a draft text, or otherwise rework a model to include appropriate metadiscourse features. These kinds of focused tasks provide plenty of scaffolded opportunities for students to see the rhetorical effects of metadiscourse items and to manipulate these for different purposes (Hyland, 2003).
此类任务可能包括以下内容:
Such tasks can include the following:
• 完成一篇省略了元话语项目的文本,并考虑添加这些项目会产生什么影响;
• completing a gapped text from which metadiscourse items have been removed and considering the effect of including them;
• 找出并删除所有具有特定特征的案例,并讨论这对文本的可理解性、影响力和读者导向性产生的影响;
• locating and removing all cases of a particular feature and discussing the effect this has on the comprehensibility, impact and reader-orientation of the text;
• 识别文本中的所有含糊其辞的措辞,用确定的陈述代替,并讨论这会对陈述的可协商性产生什么影响;
• identifying all hedges in a text, substituting a statement of certainty and discussing the effect this has on the negotiability of statements;
• 通过改变不同受众对论点的可能接受程度(同意或敌对)、对该主题的相对了解程度(专家或新手)或相对权力或地位(与作者平等或高于作者),来改写文本以适应不同的受众;
• rewriting a text for a different audience by varying their likely reception of the argument (agreement vs hostility), their relative knowledge of the subject (experts or novices) or their relative power or status (equal or superior to the writer);
• 将文本改写成给报纸的信、用于展示的海报或儿童读物;
• rewriting a text as a letter to a newspaper, a poster for display, or for children;
• 为科普期刊总结和改写一篇科学文章,并考虑需要进行哪些元话语改变;
• summarizing and rewriting a science text for a popular science journal and considering what metadiscourse changes are needed;
• 将口头文本(如讲座)转换为文章,特别注意参与标志和自我提及;
• transforming a spoken text, such as a lecture, into an essay, attending particularly to engagement markers and self- mention;
• 在文本中添加或删除所有框架标记,并评论这对文本的连贯性和可读性产生的影响;
• adding or removing all frame markers from a text and commenting on the effect this has on its cohesion and readability;
• 将学生母语文本翻译成英语,面向相似的受众和目的,并比较两种语言中元话语的差异;
• translating a text in the student’s L1 into English for a similar audience and purpose and comparing how metadiscourse differs in the two languages;
• 使用语料库检索工具,在研究摘要或引言语料库中定位并识别所有表达目的或话语目标的框架标记(例如,“我在此论证”、“我的目的是”、“我提议”)。考虑将自我提及的主语改为无生命主语(“本文将分析”,“方法将展示”)或反之亦然所产生的修辞效果。
• using a concordancer to locate and identify all frame markers expressing purpose or discourse goals (I argue here, my purpose is, I propose) in a corpus of research abstracts or introductions. Considering the rhetorical effect of changing self-mention subjects to inanimate ones (this paper analyses, the method will show) or vice versa.
三、了解受众
iii. Understanding audiences
由于元话语关注的是互动,因此有效运用元话语取决于作者对潜在读者的理解,包括他们的知识背景、认知盲区、参与和互动的预期、与作者的关系等等。因此,教师需要在写作课中融入一系列真实和模拟的读者群体。课堂读者至关重要,因为教师在回应学生写作方面扮演着核心角色,而学生同伴也可以接受培训,提供有效的反馈。此外,教师和学生都需要关注特定体裁和特定社群的读者群体问题。具体而言,教师可以通过明确写作的交际语境,帮助学生预判特定读者群体的需求和期望,例如为学生设定写作角色,或通过探究不同的语境来实现。
Because metadiscourse is concerned with interaction, to use it effectively depends on the writer’s understanding of who is likely to read the text, what they know and don’t know, their expectations of engagement and negotiation, their relationship to the writer and so on. Teachers therefore need to incorporate a range of real and simulated audience sources into their writing classes. Classroom audiences are important as teachers play a central role in responding to learners’ writing while student peers can be trained to provide effective feedback. But in addition, both teachers and students need to be sensitive to genre-specific and community-specific issues of audience. In particular, teachers can help students to anticipate the needs and expectations of particular groups of readers by specifying a clear communicative context for writing, either through specifying writer roles for students, or by investigating contexts.
文献中提出了多种培养读者意识的方法,其中三种潜在有效的方法尤为突出。首先,可以请专业读者在阅读学生文本时进行“边读边思考”,分享他们的阅读印象、反应和理解(Schriver,1992)。然后,学生可以讨论这些详细的记录,并分析哪些元话语特征可能有效,哪些可能无效。难点在于,哪些情况下额外的元话语会有所帮助。其次,可以给学生布置针对不同目标和受众的任务(Herrington,1985)。这些任务可以详细阐述一个写作情境,明确指出修辞问题和受众,例如将受众描述为对某个论点可能持友好或敌对态度,从而要求学生相应地修改文本中的元话语。第三,语言学习课堂上越来越常用的技巧是让学生研究真实的受众。这意味着与那些经常在特定语境中使用某种文体的人交谈,帮助学习者理解影响写作的社会力量以及写作者如何应对这些力量。
The literature suggests various ways to teach audience awareness and three potentially useful approaches immediately suggest themselves. First, expert readers can be asked to ‘think aloud’ while they read a student text, giving their impressions, reactions and understandings as they read (Schriver, 1992). Students can then discuss these detailed recorded responses and identify what metadiscourse features may have been successful or caused difficulties, and where additional metadiscourse might have been helpful. Second, students can be given tasks which address different goals and audiences (Herrington, 1985). These tasks might elaborate a detailed writing situation which specifies a clear rhetorical problem and audience, such as characterizing the audience as potentially friendly or hostile to an argument, so that students have to modify the metadiscourse in their texts accordingly. Third, an increasingly common technique in language learning classrooms is that students are asked to research real audiences. This means talking to those who use a genre regularly in the contexts in which it is typically found, helping learners to understand the social forces that affect writing and how writers negotiate these.
Johns(1997:105)认为,探索受众是学生学习写作的关键途径:
Johns (1997: 105) argues that the exploration of audiences is a key way that students learn about writing:
许多关于文本和过程的学生研究可以在读写课堂上完成,但学生也需要走出课堂:观察、提问和提出假设……关于文本、角色和语境,以及关于作者和读者的目的。
Much student research on texts and processes can be completed in literacy classrooms, but students also need to go outside: to observe, to question and to develop hypotheses . . . about texts, roles, and contexts, and about writers’ and readers’ purposes.
通过了解文本如何嵌入制度生活、社群和文化之中,学生可以更好地理解互动选择背后的社会目的和人际关系,而非仅仅是任意的、约定俗成的。换言之,研究读者既能揭示作者的创作行为,也能帮助解释他们创作背后的原因。
By seeing how texts are embedded in institutional life, communities and cultures, students can better understand interactional choices as motivated by social purposes and human relationships rather than as simply arbitrary and conventional. In other words, investigating readers can both reveal what writers do and help explain why they do what they do.
具体而言,以下几种社会文化知识对于理解元话语可能非常重要:
In particular, the following kinds of socio-cultural knowledge are likely to be important to an understanding of metadiscourse:
• 目标类型在机构环境中扮演的角色(其重要性、目的、结果等);
• the role the target genre plays in the institutional setting (its importance, purposes, outcomes, etc.);
• 该体裁所蕴含或提供给作家和读者的角色;
• the roles that the genre implies or makes available to writers and readers;
• 使用该体裁的作家和读者之间的制度和社会关系;
• the institutional and social relationships of writer and readers who use the genre;
• 与该体裁相关的正式程度、权威性、亲密程度以及其他人际关系方面;
• the degree of formality, authority, intimacy and other interpersonal aspects associated with the genre;
• 该体裁在该语境下与其他体裁的关系,以及从其他文本中借鉴元素的程度;
• how the genre is related to other genres in that context and the extent to which elements are borrowed from other texts;
• 观众已知的信息和他们需要了解的信息。
• what the audience already knows and what it needs to know.
约翰斯(1997)建议教师鼓励学生小组确定研究课题,制定并试用一套围绕该课题的问题,然后采访教师,了解他们的教学或写作实践。这种模式很容易扩展到其他目标领域,关注经验丰富的写作者的写作实践、理解和互动。然而,关键在于,通过这种方式让学生参与到交际事件的分析中,能帮助他们在写作时更容易构建人际图式。这类研究需要观察和聆听,并采用任何可行的方法,但所有这些方法都能帮助学生理解他们在写作课上学习的文体是如何融入真实情境的。
Johns (1997) recommends that teachers encourage groups of students to decide on an issue they want to research, to develop and pilot a set of questions which address this topic, and then to interview faculty members about their teaching or writing practices. This model could easily be extended to focus on the writing practices, understandings and interactions of experienced writers in other target domains. The important point is, however, that by involving students in the analysis of communicative events in this way it is easier for them to construct an interpersonal schema when they sit down to write. This kind of research involves watching and listening and uses whatever methods are feasible, but they can all help students to see how the genres they are learning in their writing classes are embedded in real-world situations.
四、创作文本
iv. Creating texts
最后,虽然分析文本和语境有所帮助,但学生只有通过实际写作才能真正学会有效写作。拓展写作任务不仅能让学生练习完成写作的整个过程,包括计划、起草、排版、编辑和润色,还能让他们有机会为目标读者构建文本。这类任务要求学生创作一篇文本连贯、风格恰当、思想清晰的文章,并期望文章能被阅读和回应。拓展写作让学生有机会在真实或至少是现实的情境中发展和表达自己的想法,并提升他们创作互动性强的文章的能力。
Finally, while analysing texts and contexts can help, students only learn to write effectively by actually writing. Extended writing tasks not only provide practice for students in working through the entire writing process of planning, drafting, formatting, editing and polishing a text, but also opportunities to construct a text for an audience. They require students to create a textually cohesive, stylistically appropriate and ideationally coherent piece of discourse with the intention that it will be read and responded to. Extended writing offers students the chance to develop and express ideas in response to a real-world, or at least realistic, situation, and to develop their skills in crafting an interactively successful text.
许多写作新手往往难以从他人的角度看待文本,因此无法预测读者的理解需求,也无法预判文本可能引发的反应(例如,Flower 和 Hayes,1981)。一些教师认为,写作能力较弱的写作者在能够应对额外的写作计划之前,不应承担考虑读者的负担。这些信息给写作语境带来了复杂性。然而,我认为,这些考量与作者如何表达信息密不可分。话语的互动层面和自主层面是同时存在且相互交织的。像邦克(Bonk,1990)和柯林斯与威廉姆森(Collins & Williamson,1984)这样的研究者认为,即使是写作能力最弱的作者,只要写作任务的其他方面能够妥善处理,也能应对读者相关的问题。
Many novice writers often find it difficult to see a text through another’s eyes, and are therefore unable to predict their readers’ comprehension needs or to anticipate the potential response the text is likely to receive (e.g. Flower and Hayes, 1981). Some teachers argue that weaker writers should not be burdened with wor rying about their readers until they are able to handle the added planning complexity that this information brings to the writing context. I have argued, however, that such considerations cannot be separated from how writers express their messages. The interactive and autonomous planes of discourse are simultaneous and interwoven. Researchers such as Bonk (1990) and Collins and Williamson (1984) argue that even the weakest writers can cope with reader issues if other aspects of the task are made manageable.
写作技能的培养本质上需要精心搭建支架,以便新手在提升能力的过程中获得所需的帮助。怀特和阿恩特(1991)提出了一种支架式教学方法,即运用受众意识启发法,使学生意识到关注作者和读者共同的知识和态度的重要性。他们建议使用一份包含四个关键问题的简单清单,此处以一封投诉信的回复为例进行说明(表8.2)。
Essentially the development of writing skills requires careful scaffolding so that novices get the support they need while developing their competence. One kind of scaffolding device has been suggested by White and Arndt (1991) who propose the use of audience awareness heuristics which sensitize students to the importance of attending to the knowledge and attitudes that writer and readers share. They suggest a simple checklist with four key questions, illustrated here with an example response to a letter of complaint (Table 8.2).
表 8.2受众意识启发式(White 和 Arndt,1991:32)
Table 8.2 An audience awareness heuristic (White and Arndt, 1991: 32)
此外,学生还可以向同伴或老师寻求关于文本特定方面的反馈。一种有助于提高互动意识的方法是鼓励学生拟定三四个问题,希望读者在阅读文本时能够回答这些问题。例如,他们可以询问读者关于文本可理解性(哪些地方清晰易懂?哪些地方不够清晰?)、语气(文本是否过于个人化?是否过于武断?)以及参与度(文本是否涉及……)等方面的意见。(例如,你是否恰当地参与其中?)、论证(论点是否足够清晰?是否有足够的提示?)等等。教师还可以通过面对面交流的方式对学生的写作进行反馈(Hyland,2003)。交流具有重要的优势,因为它能够弥补单向书面反馈的不足,为“师生通过对话协商文本含义”提供机会(McCarthey,1992:1)。交流的互动性使教师有机会回应学生对元话语特征的选择,讨论其他选项,并澄清这些特征所传达的含义,同时节省了批改作业的时间。
Alternatively, students can look to their student peers or the teacher for feedback on particular aspects of a text. One way of doing this which helps raise awareness of interactional issues is to encourage students to draft three or four questions they would like their readers to answer when reading the text. They can, for example, ask for comments on comprehensibility (what did you find clear?, what seemed unclear?), voice (did the text seem too personal?, was it too assertive?), engagement (did the text address you appropriately?, did it involve you?), argument (were points set out explicitly enough?, were there enough signposts?) and so on. Teachers can also give feedback on student writing through face-to-face conferencing (Hyland, 2003). Conferencing has important advantages as it can supplement the limitations of one-way written feedback with opportunities for ‘the teacher and the student to negotiate the meaning of a text through dialogue’ (McCarthey, 1992: 1). The interactive nature of the conference gives teachers a chance to respond to the student’s choice of metadiscourse features, discuss alternative options and clarify the meanings these convey while saving the time spent in detailed marking of papers.
鼓励学生在写作时考虑读者群体的方法有很多,其中大多数方法都建立在上述任务和原则之上:
There are various ways of encouraging students to consider their audience when writing, most of which lead on from the tasks and principles sketched above:
• 可以通过与老师在对话日志中进行私下互动,鼓励学生思考读者(Peyton 和 Staton,1993)。这为培养写作者的自信心、流畅性和读者意识提供了一种有效途径,尤其是在写作能力发展的早期阶段。
• Students can be encouraged to think of their reader through private interactions with the teacher in dialogue journals (Peyton and Staton, 1993). These provide a fruitful means of building confidence, fluency and audience awareness among writers, particularly in early stages of writing proficiency.
• 教师应为学生提供各种写作经验和体裁,在每种体裁中改变读者对象、写作目的以及作者与读者之间的关系特征。
• Teachers should provide students with a variety of writing experiences and genres, varying the audience, purpose and interpersonal features of the relationship between the writer and reader in each.
• 教师可以设计一些作业,为学生提供除教师以外的“预期”读者,以便学生能够“调整”自己与读者之间的互动(Elbow,1998)。
• Teachers can design assignments that provide ‘intended’ readers other than the teacher in order that students can ‘adjust the transaction’ between themselves and the reader (Elbow, 1998).
• 可以根据混合体裁作品集对学生进行评估,该作品集包含以多种体裁为不同受众撰写的文本。
• Students can be assessed on the basis of a mixed-genre portfolio which contains texts written in a range of genres for a number of different audiences.
• 可以给学生布置写作任务,包括采访作家和读者,以更好地了解他们的目的、真实读者的兴趣和价值观以及适合特定语境的体裁之间的互动。
• Students can be assigned writing tasks which involve interviewing writers and readers to gain a better understanding of the interaction between their purposes, the interests and values of real audiences, and the genres that are appropriate for specific contexts.
• 可以要求学生就敏感话题撰写各种类型的说服性文章,并预判和适应读者可能存在的批评意见。
• Students can be asked to write persuasive texts of varying kinds on sensitive topics, anticipating and accommodating the potentially critical views of their readers.
在所有任务中,明确阐述语境至关重要,这包括明确相关的文体和目标受众,以便学生理解作业目的以及元话语在任务中的作用。通过这种方式,学生可以更好地理解其所在社群的惯例,并更容易地将这些惯例视为表达立场和吸引读者的可能性,而不是限制。
In all tasks it is important that the context should be clearly stated to specify a relevant genre and a specific audience, so that students understand the purpose of the assignment and the role of metadiscourse in the task. In these ways students can come to understand the conventions of their communities and more readily view these conventions not as constraints but as possibilities for taking a stance and engaging their readers.
8.5 总结与结论
8.5 Summary and conclusions
认真对待元话语研究成果意味着承认话语互动的重要性,并找到将这种重要性转化为课堂教学任务的方法。元话语所蕴含的社会视角对教学具有重要意义,因为它不仅鼓励采用功能性方法,强调语言的用途,还强调理解受众以及运用文本与社会群体其他成员互动的重要性。因此,学术和专业写作教学就成为一个提升学生对不同元话语形式的功能、特定文体中可供选择的表达方式以及在特定语境下做出这些选择所带来的后果的认识的过程。这不仅使学习者掌握了运用社群认可的惯例来创造自身意义所需的技能,而且还有助于语言教学摆脱对过程写作和学术交流事务性方面的过度关注,转而理解学生的目标社群以及他们运用语言完成任务的方式。
Taking the metadiscourse research findings seriously means acknowledging the importance of interaction in discourse and finding ways to translate that importance into classroom tasks. The social perspective that metadiscourse entails has important implications for instruction as it encourages not only a functional approach, emphasizing what language can be used to achieve, but also the importance of understanding audience and using texts to engage with other members of a social group. Instruction in academic and professional writing then becomes a process of raising students’ awareness of the functions of different metadiscourse forms, the choices that are available to them in given genres, and the consequences of making those choices in particular contexts. This not only provides learners with the skills they need to create their own meanings using community-recognized routines, but also helps move language teaching away from an unhelpful preoccupation with process writing and transactional aspects of academic communication towards an understanding of students’ target communities and the ways they get things done using language.
为了有效理解和运用元话语,学生需要持续系统地接触差异化的、功能性的语言。然而,除了研读文本之外,研究受众和文本使用者的实践也能帮助学生更好地理解各种互动方式。在写作中,这些技巧既可行又常见。它们可以帮助作者恰当地表达立场,开启或结束对话,连贯地传递信息,并以读者期望和理解的方式与他们互动。这意味着他们并非盲目地套用正式写作的华丽辞藻,而是理解其使用语境,并有意识地、有影响力地运用这些技巧来表达他们想要传达的身份和意义。
To understand and use metadiscourse effectively it is important that students get sustained and systematic exposure to differentiated, functional language. In addition to studying texts, however, researching audiences and the practices of text users can help students develop an appreciation of the kinds of interactions that are possible and common in writing. It can help them to appropriately express a stance, to open up or close down a dialogue, to convey information coherently, and to engage with readers in ways they expect and understand. This means they do not just blindly adopt the cosmetic mannerisms of formal writing, but understand the contexts where it is used and employ it with discrimination and impact to negotiate the identities and meanings they intend.
我撰写本书的主要目的是梳理新兴的元话语领域,更精确地界定其概念,并评估其对我们理解传播(尤其是学术和专业写作)的贡献。通过汇集该领域日益丰富的研究成果,我希望能够阐明并澄清我们目前对书面互动认知的片面性和碎片化现状,揭示其在教学中的应用潜力,并为未来的研究提出方向。本书分为三个部分,旨在探讨构成该术语的各种区别、原则和分类,回顾其对修辞学、文体、文化和话语社群研究的贡献,并探讨其在写作教学中的应用。
My main aim in writing this book has been to take stock of the emerging field of metadiscourse, to define the concept more precisely, and to evaluate its contribution to our understanding of communication in general and the study of academic and professional writing in particular. By bringing together the growing body of research in this area I hope to have illuminated, and perhaps clarified, our present partial and fragmented state of knowledge of written interaction, indicated something of its pedagogic possibilities and suggested an agenda for further research. By arranging the book in three parts I have sought to explore the distinctions, principles and categorizations which characterize the term, review the contribution it has made to the study of rhetoric, genre, culture and discourse communities, and to suggest its relevance to the teaching of writing.
在本章的最后一部分,我想重新审视本次讨论中提出的主要问题,以突出一些关键特征,特别是强调元话语作为研究互动的一种系统方法的重要性,并展望未来的方向。
In this concluding chapter I want to revisit the main issues raised in this discussion to highlight some key features, in particular to stress the significance of metadiscourse as a systematic means of studying interactions, and to look forward to future directions.
9.1 元话语与社会情境中的写作者
9.1 Metadiscourse and the socially situated writer
元话语关注的是作者与读者之间的关系,作者在其中明确表达其对……的认识。沟通情境本身就是元话语理论的核心。但需要注意的是,元话语理论所指的“作者”并非孤立地表达个人意义的个体。他/她被视为社会成员,沉浸于社群活动中,试图塑造文本意义以与该社群进行有效互动。研究强调,元话语是一种语用特征。这意味着,当我们采用元话语视角时,我们并非仅仅分析或教授表面结构,而是关注特定语境中产生的修辞条件以及话语在该语境中发挥的互动功能。因此,我们关注的是社会成员的行为。换言之,元话语的重要性不在于特定形式的语义意义,而在于那些只有在特定语境中才能发挥作用的意义,这些意义既呼应又强化了该语境,使其与受众、目的和社群相关。
Metadiscourse concerns the relationship between writer and reader, with the writer making clear his or her awareness of the communication situation itself. But it should be noted that ‘the writer’ implied by a theory of metadiscourse is not an isolated individual struggling to express personal meanings. He or she is seen as a social being immersed in the activities of a community and attempting to shape textual meanings to interact effectively with that community. The research emphasizes that metadiscourse is a pragmatic feature. This means that when adopting a metadiscourse perspective we are not merely analysing or teaching surface structures. Instead we are addressing the rhetorical conditions created in a given context and the interactional functions discourse performs in that context. We are interested, then, in the behaviours of social beings. The importance of metadiscourse, in other words, lies not in the semantic meanings of particular forms but meanings which only become operative within a particular context, both invoking and reinforcing that context with regard to audience, purpose and community.
元话语概念的核心在于,其运用反映了不同社群所认可和采用的各种沟通方式的差异。作者致力于提供尽可能多的线索,以确保读者理解并接受其命题内容,而这些线索也深刻地揭示了作者如何看待他们的读者。因此,通过表明作者认为需要“补充”哪些信息以促进理解,元话语在文本与学科、社会或专业文化之间建立了联系。这种联系通过揭示文本目标受众的期望、规范和认知,界定了修辞语境的重要方面。因此,元话语模式的差异可能成为区分话语社群以及解释作者如何明确其希望读者做出的推断的重要手段。简而言之,元话语的意义在于它阐明了阐释的语境,并揭示了沟通行为定义和维系社会群体的一种方式。
Central to a conception of metadiscourse is the view that its use reflects differences in the various forms of communication recognized and employed by distinct communities. Writers are concerned to supply as many cues as are needed to secure their readers’ understanding and acceptance of propositional content, and these cues tell us a great deal about how writers see their readers. So by signalling what writers feel they need to ‘fill in’ to facilitate comprehension, metadiscourse provides a link between texts and disciplinary, social or professional cultures. This link thus defines important aspects of the rhetorical context by revealing the expectations, norms and perceptions of the audience for whom a text was written. Differences in metadiscourse patterns may therefore prove to be an important means of distinguishing discourse communities and accounting for the ways writers specify the inferences they would like their readers to make. Put simply, the significance of metadiscourse lies in its role in explicating a context for interpretation and indicating one way which acts of communication define and maintain social groups.
因此,元话语是话语分析的关键要素,它提供了对互动和参与模式的洞察,并揭示了作者如何通过他们的文本来看待其社群的价值观、兴趣和假设。
Metadiscourse is therefore a key element of discourse analysis, providing insights into patterns of interaction and engagement and revealing how writers, through their texts, see the values, interests and assumptions of their communities.
9.2 元话语与人际互动
9.2 Metadiscourse and interpersonal engagement
大量研究已证实,书面文本体现了作者与读者之间的互动。一系列语言特征被认为既有助于作者表达其对文本所指涉材料的立场,也在一定程度上影响着作者预设读者积极参与的策略。这种对人际互动的关注一直是系统功能主义和社会建构主义分析框架的核心,这两个框架都认为所有语言使用都与特定的社会、文化和教育语境相关。这些方法旨在阐明人际意义的表达方式,并描述了诸如评价(Hunston & Thompson,2000)、评估(Martin,2000;White,2003)、立场(Biber & Finegan,1989;Hyland,1999a)和参与(Hyland,2001a,2005b)等语言资源。
A great deal of research has now established that written texts embody interactions between writers and readers. A range of linguistic features have been identified as contributing both to the writer’s projection of a stance to the material referenced by the text, and, to a lesser extent, to the strategies employed to presuppose the active role of addressees. This concern with the interpersonal has always been central to both systemic functional and social constructionist frameworks of analysis, which share the view that all language use is related to specific social, cultural and educational contexts. These approaches have sought to elaborate the ways by which interpersonal meanings are expressed, describing such linguistic resources as evaluation (Hunston and Thompson, 2000), appraisal (Martin, 2000; White, 2003), stance (Biber and Finegan, 1989; Hyland, 1999a) and engagement (Hyland, 2001a, 2005b).
尤其值得注意的是,与之前的观点相反,近期研究表明,专业写作者必须在“主题导向型”话语和“人际导向型”话语之间建立适当的平衡(Thetela,1997:101)。这意味着他们需要通过指明文本的解读视角来与读者保持互动,当然,这一切都必须在不损害学术写作和职场写作中至关重要的事实信息的前提下进行。然而,目前尚无一个关于写作者如何运用各种资源来表达立场并与读者建立联系的总体类型学。元话语理论为弥补这一空白提供了一种可能的途径,它提供了一个分析主体间定位语言资源的框架。该模型关注立场、承诺、参与、团结、态度、评价和可读性,提供了一种全面而综合的方法来考察互动是如何实现的,以及不同社群的话语偏好如何塑造写作者和读者。
In particular, and in contrast to earlier claims, recent research has shown that professional writers must establish an appropriate balance between ‘topic-based’ discourse and ‘human-face’ discourse (Thetela, 1997: 101). This involves maintaining interaction with their readers by indicating the perspective from which their texts should be interpreted, and this must be done, of course, without compromising the factual information central to much academic and workplace writing. As yet, however, there is no overall typology of the resources writers employ to express their positions and connect with readers. Metadiscourse provides one possible response to this gap, offering a framework for analysing the linguistic resources of inter-subjective positioning. Attending to stance, commitment, engagement, solidarity, attitude, evaluation and readability, the model provides a comprehensive and integrated way of examining how interaction is achieved and how the discoursal preferences of different communities construct both writers and readers.
9.3 元话语和话语变异
9.3 Metadiscourse and discourse variation
元话语研究通常采用对比视角,一般聚焦于母语、学科或文体等变量,以便比较不同国家或学术文化,或刻画不同文本类型的特征。这类研究在很多方面都具有重要意义。
Metadiscourse studies typically take a contrastive angle, generally focusing on the variables of first language, discipline or genre in order to compare national or academic cultures or to characterize the features of different text types. This kind of research is important in a number of ways.
首先,它有助于确立多元读写能力的观点。这强调写作并非单一或稳定的对象,而是受到专业、机构和学科文化的影响。例如,学术话语并非统一且铁板一块,而是多种不同实践和策略的产物。论证和参与是在特定的社群中构建的,而这些社群对于什么值得交流、如何交流、读者可能具备的知识、如何说服读者等等都有着不同的看法。如果我们以符合文化和机构认可的方式构建信息,就更有可能实现我们的学科目标。
First of all it helps establish the view of multiple literacies. This emphasizes that writing is not a unitary or stable object but is influenced by professional, institutional and disciplinary cultures. Scholarly discourse, for example, is not uniform and monolithic but an outcome of a multitude of different practices and strategies, where argument and engagement are crafted within specific communities that have different ideas about what is worth communicating, how it can be communicated, what readers are likely to know, how they might be persuaded and so on. We are more likely to achieve our disciplinary purposes if we frame our messages in ways which appeal to appropriate culturally and institutionally legitimated relationships.
其次,元话语分析能够帮助我们深入了解特定文体的特征及其差异。文本的相似或差异源于其所服务的社会文化目的,而文体理论家则试图揭示这些交际目的所塑造的显著特征和惯例。然而,由于识别的主观性以及相互竞争的分类体系往往反映了不同分析者的直觉,文体区分一直受到阻碍。尽管目前尚无可靠的文体区分验证程序,但互动是语言的一个特征,可以跨文体进行分析。通过关注不同文体表达不同关系和互动模式的方式,元话语分析为明确识别文体提供了可能。
Second, metadiscourse offers insights into the characteristics of particular genres and the ways these differ. Texts are similar or different because of the socio-cultural purposes they are intended to serve, and genre theorists attempt to reveal the salient features and conventions which are shaped by these communicative purposes. Genre differentiation, however, has been hampered by subjectivity in identification and the fact that competing classification schemes often reflect the intuitions of different analysts. But while no reliable validation procedures for distinguishing genres yet exist, interaction is a feature of language that can be analysed across genres. By focusing on the ways different genres express different relationships and patterns of interaction, metadiscourse offers the possibility of unambiguous genre identification.
第三,元话语研究表明,不同文化对写作有不同的期望,这些期望体现在偏好的话语模式中。虽然在任何机构或其他跨文化情境中,我们都需要考虑复杂相互作用的“小文化”,但似乎存在相当大的差异。元话语在不同语言的相似文体中所扮演的角色。借助语料库方法收集和分析数据所带来的新严谨性,研究人员得以识别和比较等效语料库中可比的修辞特征,从而揭示文化驱动的元话语特征使用偏好。
Third, metadiscourse research shows that different cultures have different expectations for writing and that these are expressed as preferred patterns of discourse. While we need to consider the complexly interacting ‘small cultures’ in any institutional or other intercultural situation, it appears that there is considerable variation in the role played by metadiscourse in similar genres written in different languages. Assisted by a new rigour introduced by the need to collect and examine data through corpus methods, comparable rhetorical features in equivalent corpora are being identified and compared, revealing culture-driven preferences in the use of metadiscourse features.
9.4 元话语与课堂实践
9.4 Metadiscourse and classroom practice
元话语并非一种教学方法,但我们已经看到它对课堂实践具有重要意义。作为一种探究方法和洞察不同文体和社群中语言使用方式的来源,它为英语作为外语(EFL)的学生及其教师提供了知识基础,并应用于专门用途英语(ESP)教学以及学术素养方面的母语教学。元话语研究表明,教师需要了解目标社群和文体中不同的修辞惯例,理解第二语言(L2)写作者可能熟悉不同的互动惯例,并接受学生作品中不同的惯例。然而,这种包容需要结合对读者在学生的教育或工作环境中可能接受的语言变异程度的理解。
Metadiscourse is not a teaching methodology but we have seen that it has important implications for classroom practice. As a method of inquiry and source of insights into the ways language is used in different genres and communities, it provides a knowledge base for EFL students and their teachers and feeds into ESP (English for Special Purposes) teaching and into first language instruction in academic literacies. Metadiscourse research suggests that teachers need to become aware of different rhetorical conventions in target communities and genres, to understand that L2 writers may be familiar with different interactional conventions, and to accept different conventions in the work of their learners. This tolerance, however, needs to be tempered with an understanding of the degree of variation that readers are likely to accept in the students’ educational or workplace situations.
元话语的变异也凸显了这样一个事实:学术写作常常被误解为一种自然而然、不言自明且不容置疑的参与学术共同体的方式。这反过来又助长了一种观念,即存在一种通用的“学术英语”(或“商务英语”等),以及一套可以跨学科应用的表达立场、吸引受众和构建论证的策略。许多学科专家也认同这种观点,但这种将语言与语境割裂开来的、对读写能力的独立理解,误导学习者认为他们只需掌握一套可以跨语境迁移的规则即可。
Metadiscourse variation also underlines the fact that academic writing is often misrepresented as a naturalized, self-evident and noncontestable way of participating in academic communities. This in turn encourages the idea that there is one general ‘academic English’ (or ‘business English’, etc.) and one set of strategies for expressing a stance, engaging audiences and constructing arguments that can be applied across disciplines. Many subject specialists also subscribe to this view, but by divorcing language from context, such an autonomous perspective of literacy misleads learners into believing that they simply have to master a set of rules which can be transferred across contexts.
本质上,元话语研究告诉我们,优秀的作家是那些更能想象读者会如何看待他们的写作风格的人。教师之所以能够对文本做出回应,是因为他们熟悉特定语境下的惯例和预期。因此,这有助于教师理解学生需要写作的文体之间的互动模式,并为他们提供合适的框架,帮助学生思考读者的需求、经验和期望。
Essentially metadiscourse research tells us that good writers are people who are better able to imagine how their readers will respond to their texts because they are familiar with the conventions and expectations which operate in particular settings. As a result, it encourages teachers to understand the interactive and interactional patterns of the genres their students will need to write and provides them with appropriate schemata to help students think about the needs, experiences and expectations of their readers.
9.5 方法论问题
9.5 Methodological issues
对元话语的研究采用了多种方法,旨在揭示一系列语言和语用特征如何构建作者与读者之间的修辞联系。本书讨论的研究表明,这些方法主要以定性和描述性为主,侧重于宏观趋势和社群偏好,而非以精确的量化指标来验证分析结果。因此,尽管许多研究使用了语料库,但词频统计仅用于支持定性观察和比较,而非作为研究目标。
Research into metadiscourse has adopted various methods to show how an array of linguistic and pragmatic features function to form a rhetorical link between writers and readers. The studies discussed in this book indicate that these methods are predominantly qualitative and descriptive, focusing on broad tendencies and community preferences rather than validating analyses in exact quantitative terms. So while many studies make use of text corpora, the frequency counts are used to support qualitative observations and comparisons, not to serve as the goals of research.
将元话语视为互动修辞惯例的文化约束,可以引出两条可能的研究路径(Hyland,2005b)。一条路径是考察互动在具体文本中的真实情境,例如Crismore和Farnsworth在第四章中对达尔文《物种起源》的讨论。另一条路径则是将文本从其实际创作情境中剥离出来,考察语言形式如何在特定社群中与修辞效果相关联。
Framing metadiscourse as cultural constraints on rhetorical conventions of interaction suggests two possible lines of inquiry (Hyland, 2005b). One is to examine interaction as a real, situated encounter in an individual text, such as Crismore and Farnsworth’s discussion of Darwin’s The Origin of Species discussed in Chapter 4. The other approach involves removing texts from their actual circumstances of composing to examine how linguistic forms relate to rhetorical effects within particular communities.
第一种方法展现了写作者在应对当下写作环境时所展现的丰富性,但它未能捕捉到话语所唤起的文化内涵。文本的交际功能并非在创作之时便已发挥,而是在阅读之时才得以体现,因为它们预设了特定的读者以及这些读者对文本内容的反应。社会语境介入写作,激活了作者对重复性任务的特定反应。通过分析具有代表性的文本集(通常借助语料库检索软件),寻找元话语的使用模式,我们可以发现语境所提供的互动资源,并了解写作如何……它唤起并利用了这一语境。因此,以这种方式研究元话语,可以考察互动关系,并探索作家构建和参与其社群的方式。
The first method suggests the richness of composing as writers negotiate their immediate writing circumstances, but it fails to capture the culture which the discourse invokes. Texts do not function communicatively at the time they are composed but when they are read, as they anticipate particular readers and the responses of those readers to what is written. A social context intrudes upon the writer, activating specific responses to recurring tasks. By looking for patterns of metadiscourse use in representative collections of texts, usually with concordance programs, we can discover the interactional resources which context makes available and learn how writing both evokes and draws on this context. Studying metadiscourse in this way therefore provides a way of examining interactions and of exploring the ways writers construct and engage in their communities.
词频和搭配数据能够描述现有的语言实践,但它们本身并非目的。语料库分析固然有助于提高人们对元话语运用的认识,并揭示作者的写作行为,但如果止步于此,则存在将互动惯例固化而非解释其本质的风险。语料库无法完成的任务,我们必须另辟蹊径。元话语研究受益于多种方法,其中访谈和边思考边说(即作者在写作过程中边说边思考)或许是最有效的方法。文本分析必须与对文本的产生和接受过程的理解相平衡。因此,通过访谈来支持和探索文本数据,我们可以更深入地了解作者在话语中试图达成的目标,并更透彻地理解他们做出人际交往选择的原因。
Frequency and collocational data provide descriptions of existing practice but they are not ends in themselves. While corpus analyses are excellent for raising awareness of metadiscourse uses and for telling us what writers do, to stop here runs the danger of reifying interactional conventions rather than explaining them. What we cannot do with corpora we must do in other ways. The study of metadiscourse benefits from multiple methods, and interviewing and think aloud techniques, where writers talk through their actions while writing, are perhaps the most productive of these. Text analyses must be balanced with an understanding of the production and reception of those texts. So by supporting and exploring text data with interviews, we learn more about what writers seek to achieve in their discourse and gain deeper understandings of why they make the interpersonal choices they do.
9.6 一些启示和遗留问题
9.6 Some implications and remaining issues
最后,我想就一些持续存在的问题作几点简要评论,并指出一些对未来研究的启示,以此结束本书。
Finally, I would like to close this book by making a few brief remarks on some continuing issues and point to some implications for future research.
一些学者指出,元话语缺乏坚实的理论基础(Beauvais,1989;Mao,1993),不同的定义和分类体系也无助于将元话语确立为一种解释性或实践性工具。其中一个难点在于人们不愿将元话语视为一种修辞特征。例如,Crismore等人(1993)在其识别方案中混淆了语用和句法标准,而Mauranen(1993a)、Bunton(1999)、Beauvais(1989)等人则试图将其范围限定于文本特征或言语行为谓词,从而限制了其连贯性和描述力。此外,由于鲜有系统性地尝试描述元话语与语篇特征之间的关系,这些问题也变得更加复杂。文本的元话语和命题要素。例如,Crismore 和 Farnsworth (1989) 混淆了这两个要素,提出了“信息元话语”的概念;而 Williams (1981) 和 Vande Kopple (2002) 则提出了两个“意义层次”的概念,这种做法错误地将意义等同于“内容”,并暗示元话语的功能仅仅是将命题列表粘合在一起。
Several scholars have pointed to the lack of a solid theoretical basis for metadiscourse (Beauvais, 1989; Mao, 1993) and the different definitions and classification systems have not helped to establish metadiscourse as either an explanatory or practical tool. One difficulty here has been a reluctance to see metadiscourse as a rhetorical feature of communication. Crismore et al. (1993), for instance, confuse pragmatic and syntactic criteria in their identification scheme, while Mauranen (1993a), Bunton (1999), Beauvais (1989) and others seek to confine its scope to textual features or speech act predicates, so restricting its coherence and descriptive power. These problems are compounded by the fact that there have been few systematic attempts to characterize the relationship between metadiscoursal and propositional elements of texts. Crismore and Farnsworth (1989), for instance, confuse the two elements by talking of ‘informational metadiscourse’, while Williams (1981) and Vande Kopple (2002) invoke the idea of two ‘levels of meaning’, a move which misrepresents meaning as synonymous with ‘content’ and implies that metadiscourse simply functions to glue together lists of propositions.
这些问题共同导致人们未能将元话语清晰地区分为语言的一个连贯组成部分。此外,该方法唯一的理论基础是对韩礼德元功能模型的误读,这使得文本分析难以保持一致性。事实上,元话语通常被认为是一种“次要”话语,支撑着语言中更为重要的命题功能,因此,元话语对话语分析和语言教学产生如此巨大的影响,着实令人惊讶。
Together these issues have meant there has been a failure to clearly distinguish metadiscourse as a coherent aspect of language. In addition, the only theoretical underpinning of the approach has been a misreading of Halliday’s model of metafunctions, and this has subsequently made it difficult to analyse texts consistently. In fact, with metadiscourse often referred to as a ‘secondary’ discourse supporting the more important propositional work of language, it is actually surprising that metadiscourse has made the impact it has on discourse analysis and language teaching.
本书旨在阐明上述部分问题,并提出一个理论上更为稳健的元话语模型。我借鉴辛克莱(Sinclair,1981)的话语层面概念,区分话语的自主维度和互动维度,并试图纳入文本“内容”存在两种类型的事实:一种关注世界,另一种关注文本及其接受。通过借鉴韩礼德(Halliday,1994)对文本要素赋能作用的描述,我强调了区分内部功能和外部功能的必要性:在某些情况下,文本特征服务于话语逻辑,将文本凝聚在一起;而在另一些情况下,则服务于生活逻辑,阐述命题。最后,借用 Thompson 和 Thetela (1995) 对互动和互动方面的区别,我将元话语所表达的互动的两个方面凸显出来:作者如何通过安排文本来预判读者可能的反应和需求,以及如何更明确地让读者参与到文本的创作中。
In this book I have sought to clarify some of these issues and present a theoretically more robust model of metadiscourse. By adopting Sinclair’s (1981) idea of planes of discourse to distinguish the autonomous and interactional dimensions of discourse I have attempted to incorporate the fact that there are two types of text ‘content’: one concerned with the world and the other with the text and its reception. By drawing on Halliday’s (1994) characterization of the enabling role of textual elements I have highlighted the need to distinguish internal and external functions: that in some cases textual features address the logic of discourse, cementing the text together, and in others the logic of life, elaborating propositions. And finally, by borrowing Thompson and Thetela’s (1995) distinction between interactive and interactional aspects of interaction, I have brought the two facets of interaction expressed by metadiscourse to the fore: the ways writers signal the arrangement of their texts to anticipate readers’ likely reactions and needs and how they more explicitly involve them collaboratively in the development of the text.
我认为,这些修改通过将元话语的概念与对语境和社会互动的理解更紧密地联系起来,从而强化了元话语的概念。但这虽然为该理论提供了更连贯的理论基础,并有望带来更大的解释力,但……潜在元话语的存在也使得分析变得复杂,因为它要求对文本进行更细致、更注重语境的研究。分析者必须考察每一个潜在的元话语项,以确定其在话语中是否发挥人际互动功能。这与简单地统计语义形式的出现次数截然不同,因为我们无法脱离词语的功能用法和组合对其进行分类。这意味着我们需要判断这些特征指的是话语内部的还是现实世界的事物,从而赋予它们元话语价值或命题价值。这一点在元话语研究中并非总是得到体现,但它对于区分元话语和命题至关重要。在某些情况下,语境允许两种解读,但这不应阻止我们以这种方式研究文本。
These modifications, I believe, strengthen the concept of metadiscourse by tying it more closely to understandings of context and social interaction. But while this offers a more coherent rationale for the theory and holds the promise of greater explanatory potential, it also complicates analyses by requiring a more careful and context-sensitive study of texts. It is important that analysts examine every potential metadiscourse item to determine whether it is functioning interpersonally in the discourse. This is very different to simply counting off instances of semantic forms as we cannot categorize individual words detached from their functional use and combinations. This means resolving whether features are referring to discourse-internal or real-world matters in order to assign either metadiscoursal or propositional values to them. This is not always observed in the work on metadiscourse but is crucial to differentiating the metadiscoursal from the propositional. In some cases the co-text allows for both readings, but this should not deter us from studying texts in this way.
9.7 进一步研究
9.7 Further research
在使用这种分析模型时,存在着进一步研究的迫切需求和相当大的机会。
In using this model of analysis, there is a significant need, and considerable opportunity, for further research.
首先,尽管缓和语、增强语和证据语在文献中已受到相当多的关注,尤其是在它们在关键学术文体中的运用方面,但仍有很大的空间去探索其他元话语功能以及各种语体的使用。特别是,探索特定社群和文体中的互动特征及其含义、频率和聚类模式将十分有趣且实用。例如,过渡语和排序语的指称对象是文本内部还是文本外部,可以揭示组织经验和组织话语作为说服工具的相对重要性;而考察实现内指语和证据语的语料,则可以揭示论证的构建方式以及在不同语境中建立互文联系的方式。或许还值得一提的是,计算机化话语语料库的日益普及极大地促进了元话语研究,为识别修辞行为的原则和规律提供了更可靠、更系统的手段。
First, while hedges, boosters and evidentials have received considerable attention in the literature, especially in so far as they are used in key academic genres, there is still substantial scope to explore other metadiscourse functions and the use of individual forms. In particular, it would be interesting and useful to explore interactive features and their meanings, frequencies and cluster patterns in particular communities and genres. The extent to which transitions and sequencing items have text-internal or text-external referents, for example, points to the relative significance of organizing experience and organizing discourse as tools of persuasion, while looking at the items which realize endophorics and evidentials can indicate the ways arguments are constructed and intertextual links established in different contexts. It is, perhaps, also worth noting here that metadiscourse research is greatly assisted by the growing availability of computerized discourse corpora which open up more reliable and systematic means of identifying the principles and regularities of rhetorical behaviour.
其次,应该针对不同人群、不同主题,对不同体裁的作品进行更多描述性研究。这将有助于确定特定文体所特有的互动特征,以及这些互动模式如何将文本用户联系起来。元话语研究主要集中于少数学术文体,例如研究论文、教科书和学位论文,但了解互动在其他类型文本中的运作方式至关重要。商业文体显然是这方面的一个关键领域,相关分析可以有效地拓展广告、报纸社论和公司年报的研究,探索在其他类型文本中引导读者和实现说服的方式。尤其值得注意的是,我们对新兴的商业和专业文体(例如电子邮件和在线同步会议)中的互动知之甚少。这类研究不仅有助于我们更精确地界定文体,还能为我们深入了解互动在不同论证形式中的作用提供重要视角。
Second, more descriptive studies should be done with different genres written for different populations on different topics. This would help to determine the interactional features which characterize particular genres and how such interactional patterns relate text users together interpersonally. Metadiscourse studies have largely focused on a limited number of academic genres such as research articles, textbooks and dissertations, but it is important to see how interactions work in other kinds of texts. Business genres are obviously a key area here and analyses could profitably extend the work on advertising, newspaper editorials and company annual reports to explore the ways that readers are guided and persuasion is accomplished in other kinds of texts. In particular we know little about interactions in the emerging business and professional genres of email and online synchronous conferencing. These kinds of studies would not only help us to delineate genres more precisely, but also provide important insights about the role of interaction in different forms of argument.
第三,元话语研究可以为Hinkel (2002)、Mauranen (1993a)等人开展的跨文化话语变异研究做出贡献,这些研究旨在探索不同母语群体在目标语境中对特定元话语形式和人际交往实践的预期。元话语研究以英语为共同参照点,这反映了英语作为全球教育和研究界通用语的重要性。但研究范围可以扩展到其他语言和文化群体中的互动方式。事实上,这是一个新兴领域,它不仅有助于收集潜在文化变异的证据,还能揭示不同写作者之间的异同,从而为教师培训和第二语言教学提供参考。正如我们所见,对于第二语言写作者而言,控制互动特征往往尤为困难,这会导致“跨文化语用失败”,严重影响此类写作者的可信度,甚至可能使他们被视为粗鲁、无礼或咄咄逼人。对跨文化元话语使用差异的研究可能会对教学和学习领域产生重大影响。
Third, metadiscourse research can contribute to the important work conducted by Hinkel (2002), Mauranen (1993a) and others into intercultural discourse variation, exploring the expectations for particular metadiscourse forms and interpersonal practices of different first language groups in target contexts. Metadiscourse studies use English as a common point of reference, reflecting the importance of English as a lingua franca in the global education and research community. But research can spread beyond this to the ways interactions function in other languages and cultural groups. This is, in fact, a growing field and not only serves the purpose of gathering evidence for potential cultural variation, but also illuminates similarities and differences between writers which can feed into teacher training and second language teaching. As we have seen, control of interactional features is often particularly difficult for L2 writers and contributes to the ‘cross-cultural pragmatic failure’ which can seriously affect the credibility of such writers and may even result in them being regarded as boorish, impolite or pushy. Such research into cross-cultural differences in metadiscourse use could have a significant impact on this area of teaching and learning.
第四,研究不同话语社群通常如何使用元话语,可以帮助我们更清晰地了解文本是如何成为互动和话语实践的产物,而这些互动和话语实践又涉及参与专业和社会关系网络。社群是由人与人之间的关系构成的,因此参与社群需要与同事进行谨慎的协商和考量。通过揭示不同社群中写作者的互动偏好,我们不仅能够了解那些被认可的修辞实践,还能了解它们所反映和构建的价值观、规范、理解和制度结构。此类研究对母语(L1)和第二语言(L2)学习者都具有价值,因为它能帮助他们应对作为目标学科或职业新手经常遇到的关于写作(和口语)的新思维方式。通过揭示人际交往实践如何依赖于话语领域和语境,元话语研究可以帮助学习者关注在其“母语”话语中以不同方式使用的特征。这样,他们就能更好地在新目标语境中创作有效且恰当的文本。
Fourth, research into the ways metadiscourse is typically used by different discourse communities can help us see more clearly how texts are the outcome o f interactions and discourse practices which involve engagement in a web of professional and social associations. Communities are composed of relationships between people and so participation in them involves careful negotiations with, and considerations of, colleagues. By revealing the interactional and interactive preferences of writers in different communities we are able to learn more not only about those approved rhetorical practices but also about the values, norms, understandings and institutional structures which they reflect and conjure up. Such research is also valuable to both L1 and L2 students as it can help them to cope with the new ways of thinking about writing (and speaking) that often confront them as novice members of their target disciplines or professions. By revealing the ways interpersonal practices depend on discourse domain and context, metadiscourse research can help learners attend to features that are used differently in their ‘home’ discourses. In this way they are better equipped to produce effective and appropriate texts in new target contexts.
最后,关于元话语实践的历时性研究寥寥无几,亟需开展相关研究,以记录思维方式、论证模式和意识形态实践随时间推移而发生的变化。目前已有部分研究成果。例如,Taavitsainen(1999)对科学写作中元话语运用的研究表明,从14世纪到16世纪,科学写作的修辞风格从相对疏离转向更具互动性和以读者为中心的风格,主动语态和元话语评述的使用也随之增加;而Atkinson(1999)的研究则显示,此后出现了相反的趋势。Fairclough(1995)提出了另一种变化形式,他观察到许多公共和商业文体如今呈现出一种他称之为“综合个性化”的特征,即通过模拟友好对话来掩盖其支配或商业目的。然而,这些变化和趋势仍不甚明了,对变化模式的细致分析将极大地促进学术和专业社群的历时性研究以及批判性话语分析的发展。
Finally, there are very few diachronic studies of metadiscourse practices and research is urgently needed to document changing thought styles, patterns of argument, and ideological practices over time. Some work has been done. Taavitsainen’s (1999) study of metadiscourse use in scientific writing, for instance, shows a movement from a relatively detached to a more interactive and reader-centred rhetoric from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, with an increase in active voice and metadiscursive commentary, while Atkinson (1999) shows an opposite trend since that time. Fairclough (1995) has suggested another form of change, observing that many public and business genres now exhibit a feature he calls ‘synthetic personalization’ which simulates the involvement of friendly conversation in order to mystify domination or commercial objectives. These changes and tendencies are still unclear, however, and careful analysis of patterns of change would be enormously beneficial to diachronic studies of academic and professional communities and to critical discourse analysis.
这些研究建议较为宽泛,仅代表元话语研究可能采取的几个较为明显的方向。然而,重要的是,它们代表了关键领域,将有助于我们理解和教授语言,同时也能完善元话语这一新兴领域所采用和发展的多维理论和方法。
These research suggestions are relatively broad and represent just a few of the more obvious directions that metadiscourse research could take. Importantly, however, they represent key areas which will benefit both our understanding and our teaching of language while sharpening the multidimensional theories and methodologies that the emerging field of metadiscourse has taken up and adopted.
这些提议的广度也表明,我们目前对语言使用的互动特性理解尚不充分。这些提议强调,我们才刚刚开始挖掘语言资源的宝库,去理解作者和读者——说话者和听话者——如何协商他们的想法、彼此互动并构建他们的社群。然而,元话语研究越来越清晰地表明,我们在写作的不同阶段所做的决定——例如开放或限制对话空间、突出或隐藏我们的参与、诉诸社群知识或阐明假设、澄清或模糊我们的论点、坚持自己的观点或将其归于他人——都是策略性的选择。它们是一系列实践的一部分,这些实践构建了构成社会社群成员关系的纽带。
The breadth of these proposals also points to our currently rather sketchy understandings of the interactional character of language use. These proposals emphasize that we have only just begun to tap into this reservoir of linguistic resources, to understand how writers and readers – speakers and hearers – negotiate their ideas, engage with each other and construct their communities. Metadiscourse research is making it increasingly clear, however, that the decisions we make at different points of composing, to open dialogical space or restrict it, to foreground or disguise our involvement, to appeal to community knowledge or spell out assumptions, to clarify or obfuscate our arguments, to stand behind our views or attribute them to others, are all strategic choices. They are part of a repertoire of practices which create the relationships that constitute membership of social communities.
我希望本书中提出的模型和分析能够让读者对这些互动资源及其在不同社会群体中的运用方式有更深入的了解。我也希望能够阐明元话语研究如何帮助我们更好地理解已发表的文本、社群实践和人际关系。但最重要的是,我希望能够鼓励更多人探索这些实践,并完善我们现有的模型。元话语是一个相对较新的研究领域,目前仍在发展之中。然而,它在描述和解释方面都蕴藏着巨大的潜力,有望揭示所有交流背后的互动机制,并帮助我们理解话语是如何成为特定社群、具有历史背景的文化产物。
I hope the model and analyses I have presented in this book have shed a little more light on these resources of interaction and the ways they are employed by different social groups. I also hope to have illustrated something of how metadiscourse studies are beginning to help us understand more about published texts, community practices and human relationships. But most of all, I hope to have encouraged others to explore these practices and refine the models we currently have. Metadiscourse is a relatively new field of investigation and is still growing. It is, however, a field which holds considerable potential for both description and explanation, promising to reveal the interactions which underlie all communication and help us see how discourses are community-specific, historically situated cultural products.
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Metadiscourse items investigated
这些是本书中用于探讨元话语功能的潜在实现方式的检索词。当然,必须记住,所有检索词都可能体现命题意义或元话语意义,许多检索词还能表达互动意义或人际意义。因此,每个检索词都应在其句法语境中进行分析。
These are the search items used in this book as potentially realizing metadiscourse functions. It must be remembered, of course, that all items can realize either propositional or metadiscoursal meanings and that many can express either interactive or interpersonal meanings. Every instance should therefore be studied in its sentential co-text.
互动元话语
Interactive Metadiscourse
代码释义
Code Glosses
–
–
()
()
事实上
as a matter of fact
称为
called
定义为
defined as
例如
e.g.
例如
for example
例如
for instance
我是说
I mean
IE
i.e.
实际上
in fact
换句话说
in other words
的确
indeed
被称为
known as
即
namely
或 X
or X
换句话说
put another way
说
say
具体来说
specifically
例如
such as
那是
that is
也就是说
that is to say
这意味着
that means
这意味着
this means
即
viz
这意味着
which means
内生标记物
Endophoric Markers
(在)第十章
(In) Chapter X
(在)第十部分
(In) Part X
(在)第十节
(In) Section X
(在)第X章
(In) the X chapter
X 部分
(In) the X part
X 部分
(In) the X section
(在)本章
(In) This chapter
(在)这部分
(In) This part
(在这个部分
(In) This section
示例 X
Example X
图 X
Fig. X
图 X
Figure X
P. X
P. X
第 X 页
Page X
表 X
Table X
X 上方
X above
X 之前
X before
X 下方
X below
X 早些时候
X earlier
X 稍后
X later
证据
Evidentials
(日期)/(姓名)
(date)/(name)
引用 X
(to) cite X
(引用)X
(to) quote X
[参考编号]/[名称]
[ref. no.]/[name]
根据 X
according to X
引用
cited
引
quoted
车架标记
Frame Markers
a) 测序
a) Sequencing
(在)第十章
(in) chapter X
(在)第 X 部分
(in) part X
(在)第 X 部分
(in) section X
(在)第 X 章
(in) the X chapter
X 部分
(in) the X part
X 部分
(in) the X section
本章
(in) this chapter
(在)这一部分
(in) this part
(在这个部分
(in) this section
最后
finally
第一的
first
首先
first of all
首先
firstly
最后的
last
最后
lastly
列表(a、b、c 等)
listing (a, b, c, etc.)
下一个
next
编号(1、2、3 等)
numbering (1, 2, 3, etc.)
第二
second
第二
secondly
随后
subsequently
然后
then
第三
third
第三
thirdly
开始
to begin
首先
to start with
b) 标签阶段
b) label stages
总而言之
all in all
在此刻
at this point
在这一阶段
at this stage
遥遥领先
by far
就目前而言
for the moment
简而言之
in brief
综上所述
in conclusion
简而言之
in short
总之
in sum
总之
in summary
现在
now
总体上
on the whole
全面的
overall
迄今为止
so far
迄今为止
thus far
总结
to conclude
重复
to repeat
总结
to sum up
总而言之
to summarize
c) 宣布目标
c) announce goals
本章
(in) this chapter
(在)这一部分
(in) this part
(在这个部分
(in) this section
目的
aim
渴望
desire to
重点
focus
目标
goal
打算
intend to
意图
intention
客观的
objective
目的
purpose
寻求
seek to
想要
want to
希望
wish to
想
would like to
d) 转换话题
d) shift topic
返回
back to
离题
digress
关于
in regard to
继续前行
move on
现在
now
恢复
resume
返回
return to
重访
revisit
转向
shift to
所以
so
仔细观察
to look more closely
转向
turn to
出色地
well
关于
with regard to
过渡标记
Transition Markers
因此
accordingly
此外
additionally
再次
again
还
also
或者
alternatively
虽然
although
和
and
因此
as a consequence
因此
as a result
同时
at the same time
因为
because
除了
besides
但
but
相比之下
by contrast
同样地,
by the same token
最后
consequently
反过来
conversely
同样地
equally
虽然
even though
更远
further
此外
furthermore
因此
hence
然而
however
此外
in addition
相比之下
in contrast
同样地
in the same way
导致
leads to
同样地
likewise
而且
moreover
尽管如此
nevertheless
尽管如此
nonetheless
相反
on the contrary
另一方面
on the other hand
相当
rather
结果
result in
相似地
similarly
自从
since
所以
so
以便
so as to
仍然
still
结果是
the result is
从而
thereby
所以
therefore
尽管
though
因此
thus
然而
whereas
尽管
while
然而
yet
互动元话语
Interactional Metadiscourse
态度指标
Attitude Markers
!
!
诚然
admittedly
同意
agree
同意
agrees
同意
agreed
惊叹
amazed
惊人的
amazing
令人惊讶的是
amazingly
合适的
appropriate
适当
appropriately
惊讶
astonished
惊人
astonishing
令人震惊地
astonishingly
正确
correctly
好奇的
curious
奇怪的是
curiously
理想
desirable
理想情况下
desirably
失望的
disappointed
令人失望
disappointing
令人失望地
disappointingly
不同意
disagree
不同意
disagreed
不同意
disagrees
戏剧性
dramatic
戏剧性地
dramatically
基本的
essential
本质上
essentially
甚至 x
even x
预期的
expected
不出所料
expectedly
幸运
fortunate
幸运的是
fortunately
充满希望
hopeful
希望
hopefully
重要的
important
重要
importantly
不当
inappropriate
不恰当地
inappropriately
有趣的
interesting
有趣的是
interestingly
更喜欢
prefer
优选
preferable
最好
preferably
首选
preferred
卓越
remarkable
非常
remarkably
震惊
shocked
令人震惊
shocking
令人震惊地
shockingly
引人注目
striking
引人注目
strikingly
惊讶
surprised
奇怪
surprising
出奇
surprisingly
难以置信
unbelievable
难以置信
unbelievably
可以理解
understandable
可以理解
understandably
意外
unexpected
不料
unexpectedly
不幸
unfortunate
很遗憾
unfortunately
异常
unusual
异常地
unusually
通常
usual
助推器
Boosters
实际上
actually
总是
always
相信
believe
相信
believed
相信
believes
毫无疑问
beyond doubt
肯定
certain
当然
certainly
清除
clear
清楚地
clearly
最终
conclusively
绝对地
decidedly
定
definite
确实
definitely
证明
demonstrate
已证明
demonstrated
证明
demonstrates
毫无疑问
doubtless
建立
establish
已确立的
established
明显
evident
显然
evidently
寻找
find
发现
finds
成立
found
实际上
in fact
无可争议的
incontestable
无可争议地
incontestably
无可辩驳的
incontrovertible
无可辩驳地
incontrovertibly
的确
indeed
无可争议的
indisputable
无可争议地
indisputably
知道
know
已知
known
必须(可能性)
must (possibility)
绝不
never
无疑
no doubt
明显的
obvious
明显地
obviously
当然
of course
证明
prove
已证实
proved
证明
proves
意识到
realize
已实现
realized
意识到
realizes
真的
really
展示
show
显示
showed
所示
shown
演出
shows
当然
sure
一定
surely
思考
think
思考
thinks
想法
thought
真的
truly
真的
true
无可否认
undeniable
无可否认
undeniably
毫无疑问
undisputedly
无疑
undoubtedly
毫无疑问
without doubt
自我提及
Self-Mention
我
I
我们
we
我
me
我的
my
我们的
our
矿
mine
我们
us
作者
the author
作者的
the author’s
作者
the writer
作者的
the writer’s
参与度指标
Engagement Markers
(
(
?
?
读者的
(the) reader’s
添加
add
允许
allow
分析
analyse
申请
apply
安排
arrange
评估
assess
认为
assume
顺便一提
by the way
计算
calculate
选择
choose
分类
classify
比较
compare
连接
connect
考虑
consider
咨询
consult
对比
contrast
定义
define
证明
demonstrate
决定
determine
不要
do not
发展
develop
采用
employ
确保
ensure
估计
estimate
评价
evaluate
寻找
find
跟随
follow
去
go
必须
have to
想象
imagine
顺便
incidentally
增加
increase
输入
input
插入
insert
整合
integrate
钥匙
key
令 x = y
let x = y
让我们
let us
我们来吧
let’s
看看
look at
标记
mark
措施
measure
山
mount
必须
must
需要
need to
笔记
note
注意
notice
观察
observe
一个人的
one’s
命令
order
应该
ought
我们的(包括)
our (inclusive)
支付
pay
图片
picture
准备
prepare
记起
recall
恢复
recover
参考
refer
看待
regard
记住
remember
消除
remove
审查
review
看
see
选择
select
放
set
应该
should
展示
show
认为
suppose
状态
state
以(看/举例)为例
take (a look/as example)
想想
think about
想想
think of
转动
turn
我们(包括我们)
us (inclusive)
使用
use
我们(包括我们)
we (inclusive)
你
you
你的
your
树篱
Hedges
关于
about
几乎
almost
明显
apparent
显然
apparently
出现
appear
出现
appeared
出现
appears
大约
approximately
争论
argue
争论
argued
论点
argues
大约
around
认为
assume
假定
assumed
总体而言
broadly
一定金额
certain amount
在某种程度上
certain extent
一定程度
certain level
宣称
claim
声称
claimed
索赔
claims
可以
could
不能
couldn’t
怀疑
doubt
疑
doubtful
本质上
essentially
估计
estimate
估计的
estimated
相当
fairly
感觉
feel
感觉
feels
毛毡
felt
频繁地
frequently
从我的角度来看
from my perspective
从我们的角度来看
from our perspective
从这个角度来看
from this perspective
一般来说
generally
猜测
guess
表明
indicate
表明的
indicated
表示
indicates
一般来说
in general
大多数情况下
in most cases
大多数情况下
in most instances
依我之见
in my opinon
在我看来
in my view
从这个角度来看
in this view
我们认为
in our opinion
我们认为
in our view
很大程度上
largely
可能
likely
主要
mainly
可能
may
或许
maybe
可能
might
大多
mostly
经常
often
总体上
on the whole
应该
ought
也许
perhaps
合情合理
plausible
可能
plausibly
可能的
possible
可能
possibly
假定
postulate
假定
postulated
公理
postulates
推测
presumable
想必
presumably
可能
probable
大概
probably
相当
quite
还是 x
rather x
相对地
relatively
大致
roughly
似乎
seems
应该
should
有时
sometimes
有些
somewhat
建议
suggest
建议
suggested
建议
suggests
认为
suppose
据称
supposed
假设
supposes
怀疑
suspect
嫌疑人
suspects
倾向于
tend to
倾向于
tended to
倾向于
tends to
据我所知
to my knowledge
典型的
typical
通常
typically
不确定
uncertain
不确定性
uncertainly
不清楚
unclear
不清楚
unclearly
不太可能
unlikely
通常
usually
会
would
不会
wouldn’t
这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里都是学术论述。
academic discourse here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
此处可投放广告
advertisements here
announcements here, here, here, here
这里、这里...
argument here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
态度标记在此——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处
attitude markers here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here
attributors here, here, here, here
观众在此——此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处
audience here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here
权威在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此
authority here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里提供书评
book reviews here
这里、这里...
boosters here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here
citation here–here, here, here, here
代码注释在此处、此处...
code glosses here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here
评论见此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处
commentary here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里有一些实践社区。
communities of practice here
连词here , here , here – here , here , here , here , here , here
conjunctions here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here
connectives here, here–here, here, here, here–here
上下文在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此
context here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here
Contrastive rhetoric here, here, here
corpora here, here, here, here, here–here, here
这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,
credibility here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,
Critical Discourse Analysis here, here
这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化,这里文化
culture here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here
学科在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此
Disciplines here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here
applied linguistics here, here, here
这里是化学领域
chemistry here
marketing here, here, here, here
这里是哲学,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里
philosophy here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here
physics here, here–here, here, here
社会学在这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
sociology here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Discourse community here, here, here, here, here, here
内生标记位于此处、此处、此处、此处、此处——此处、此处、此处
endophoric markers here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here
此处互动——此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处,此处,此处,此处——此处,此处
engagement here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here
互动标记点在此处、此处、此处、此处——此处、此处、此处——此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处
engagement markers here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
评估在此、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处——此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处、此处
evaluation here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here
证据在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此
evidentials here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here
此处存在外部文本关系
external text relations here
帧标记在此–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里–这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
frame markers here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
类型在这里,这里...
genre here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here
academic here, here, here, here, here, here
此处分析
analysis here
这里、这里、这里、这里、这里——这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里——这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里——这里、这里
hedges here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here
ideational function here, here
identity here, here, here, here
ideology here, here, here, here, here
illocution markers here–here, here, here, here
impersonal stance here, here, here, here, here, here
此处提供完整引用和非完整引用格式。
integral and non-integral citation forms here
互动元话语在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此,在此,在此——在此,在此
interactional metadiscourse here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here
互动元话语在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此
interactive metadiscourse here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
internal text relations here, here
interpersonal function here, here
interpersonal metadiscourse here, here, here, here, here, here
interview data here, here, here, here
知识
Knowledge
soft here, here, here, here, here, here, here
语言
Languages
Chinese here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Finnish here, here–here, here, here–here, here
香港华人在这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里——这里
Hong Kong Chinese here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here
Japanese here, here, here, here, here
这里是韩语,这里是韩语,这里是韩语,这里是韩语,这里是韩语。
Korean here, here, here, here, here
我是乌克兰人
Ukrainian here
语言函数在这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
language functions here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里会讲课
lectures here
levels of meaning here, here, here, here
membership here, here, here, here, here
mitigation strategies here, here, here
move-structure here, here, here, here, here
multi-modality here, here, here, here, here
参与者在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此,在此
participants here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里是人物,这里是人物,这里是人物,这里是人物,这里是人物,这里是人物,这里是人物,这里是人物。
persona here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里、这里、这里、这里——这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里
persuasion here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
politeness here, here, here, here
popularizations here, here, here–here, here–here, here
这里的人称代词有:这里、 ...
pronouns here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here
propositional discourse here, here
reader-responsible prose here, here, here
references here, here, here, here, here, here, here
research article here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里、这里、这里、这里——这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里、这里
rhetoric here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
这里的精神,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里——这里,这里
ethos here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here
此处提及自己
self-mention here
sequencers here, here, here, here, here
社会建构主义在此
social constructivism here
specialist informants here, here, here, here, here, here, here
systemic functional linguistics here, here
teaching and learning here, here
教科书在这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
textbooks here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here
Textual function here, here, here, here, here, here
Textual metadiscourse here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here
这里区分了交易和互动。
transactional-interactional distinction here
过渡在这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里
transitions here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here
阿卜杜拉扎德,E .
Abdollahzadeh, E. here
阿布·卢格德,L .
Abu-Lughod, L. here
艾莉森,D .
Allison, D. here
Altenberg,B.在这里
Altenberg, B. here
Atkinson, D. here, here, here, here, here
奥斯汀,我是JL
Austin, J. L. here
Bartholomae,D.此处
Bartholomae, D. here
巴顿,D .
Barton, D. here
Barton, E. L. here, here, here
Beauvais, P. here, here–here, here
贝内什,S .
Benesch, S. here
Berkenkotter, C. here, here, here
Bhatia, V. K. here, here, here
布鲁尔,M .
Bloor, M. here
布鲁尔,T .
Bloor, T. here
布朗,G .
Brown, G. here
布朗,P .
Brown, P. here
Bunton, D. here, here, here, here
Camiciottoli,B.在这里
Camiciottoli, B. here
查菲,W .
Chafe, W. here
Cheng, X. here, here, here, here
Chin,E.这里
Chin, E. here
康纳,U .
Connor, U. here
克里斯莫尔,A .这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里
Crismore, A. here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here
卡廷,J .
Cutting, J. here
达尔,T .
Dahl, T. here
达德利-埃文斯,T.在这里
Dudley-Evans, T. here
我是El-Sayed,AM 。
El-Sayed, A. M. here
法恩斯托克,J .
Fahnestock, J. here
Farnsworth, R.这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
Farnsworth, R. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Forey,G .
Forey, G. here
Fuertes-Olivera, P. here, here
格尔茨,C .
Geertz, C. here
吉尔伯特,G .
Gilbert, G. here
戈夫曼,E .
Goffman, E. here
Halliday, M. A. K. here, here, here–here, here–here
Hasan,R .
Hasan, R. here
霍金,S .
Hawking, S. here
赫林顿,A .
Herrington, A. here
Hinkel,E.这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里,这里
Hinkel, E. here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here
这里是阿肯色州霍利迪
Holliday, A. R. here
Hunston, S. here, here, here, here
Hyland, K.这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
Hyland, K. here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Intaraprawat, P. here, here, here
Johns, A. M. here, here, here, here, here–here
乔利夫,地方检察官
Jolliffe, D. A. here
Kachru,Y.在这里
Kachru, Y. here
基林斯沃思,MJ在此
Killingsworth, M. J. here
Kirsch,G .
Kirsch, G. here
克拉姆施,C.在此
Kramsch, C. here
郭志豪
Kuo, C.-H. here
Lantolf,JP在此
Lantolf, J. P. here
拉夫,J .
Lave, J. here
Le,L.在这里
Le, L. here
Levinson,S.在这里
Levinson, S. here
刘,E .
Liu, E. here
爱,AM在这里
Love, A. M. here
麦克唐纳,SP在这里
MacDonald, S. P. here
Martin,JR在这里,在这里,在这里,在这里,在这里,在这里,在这里
Martin, J. R. here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Mauranen,A.这里,这里–这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
Mauranen, A. here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here
这里是萨斯喀彻温省梅纳德。
Maynard, S. K. here
Milton, J. here, here, here, here
Moreno, A. here, here, here, here, here, here
莫塔-罗斯,D .
Motta-Roth, D. here
穆尔霍兰德,J .
Mulholland, J. here
Myers,G.这里–这里,这里–这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
Myers, G. here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here
尼斯特兰德,M .
Nystrand, M. here
Ohta,A .
Ohta, A. here
帕尔特里奇,B .
Paltridge, B. here
Prior,P .
Prior, P. here
雷德-博伊德,T .
Redd-Boyd, T. here
我是Roen,DH。
Roen, D. H. here
Schiffrin, D. here, here, here
施赖弗,K .
Schriver, K. here
我是Searle,JJ
Searle, J. J. here
肖,P .
Shaw, P. here
Sinclair, J. here, here, here, here, here
斯莱特,W .
Slater, W. here
斯帕克,R .
Spack, R. here
Steffensen, M. here, here, here, here–here
斯韦尔斯,J.这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里——这里,这里,这里
Swales, J. here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here
塔维特赛宁,我。
Taavitsainen, I. here
Tadros,A.在这里
Tadros, A. here
Thetela, P. here, here, here, here
Thompson, G. here, here–here, here, here, here, here
图尔敏,S .
Toulmin, S. here
曾恩
Tsang. E. here
Tse, P. here, here, here, here, here
Upton,T .
Upton, T. here
Valero-Garces, C. here, here, here
Vande Kopple,W.这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
Vande Kopple, W. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Ventola, E. here, here, here, here, here
维果茨基,L.
Vygotsky, L. here
温格,E .
Wenger, E. here
White, P. here, here, here, here
惠特利,R .
Whitley, R. here
威廉姆斯,J.这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里,这里
Williams, J. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
沃尔夫森,N .
Wolfson, N. here
尤尔,G .
Yule, G. here
Zamel,V.在这里
Zamel, V. here
张,JZ
Zhang, J. Z. here
布鲁姆斯伯里学术出版社
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
布鲁姆斯伯里出版有限公司
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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布鲁姆斯伯里 (Bloomsbury)、布鲁姆斯伯里学术出版社 (Bloomsbury Academic) 和戴安娜标志均为布鲁姆斯伯里出版有限公司的商标。
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2005年首次在英国出版
First published in Great Britain 2005
本版本出版于2019年
This edition published 2019
版权所有 © Ken Hyland,2005年、2019年
Copyright © Ken Hyland, 2005, 2019
Ken Hyland 已根据 1988 年《版权、设计和专利法》主张其有权被认定为该作品的作者。
Ken Hyland has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
封面图片 © Shutterstock
Cover image © Shutterstock
版权所有。未经出版商事先书面许可,不得以任何形式或任何方式(包括电子或机械方式,例如复印、录音或任何信息存储和检索系统)复制或传播本出版物的任何部分。
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
布鲁姆斯伯里出版社(Bloomsbury Publishing Plc)对本书提及或涉及的任何第三方网站均不拥有控制权或承担任何责任。本书中提供的所有网址在付印时均有效。如果网址发生变更或网站已失效,由此造成的不便,作者和出版商深表歉意,但对此类变更不承担任何责任。
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
本书的目录记录可从大英图书馆获取。
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
本书的馆藏记录可从美国国会图书馆获取。
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
系列:布鲁姆斯伯里语言学经典丛书
Series: Bloomsbury Classics in Linguistics
PB:978-1-3500-6358-7
PB: 978-1-3500-6358-7
电子版PDF:978-1-3500-6360-0
ePDF: 978-1-3500-6360-0
电子书:978-1-3500-6359-4
eBook: 978-1-3500-6359-4
由印度钦奈的迪安塔全球出版服务公司排版
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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